Population—
Products—Places of Settlement—The First Families of Ore­gon—Stock-raising and
Agriculture—Founding of Towns—Land Titles —Ocean Traffic—Ship-building and
Commerce—Domestic Matters: Food, Clotting, and Shelter—Society: Religion, Educa­tion,
and Morals—Benevolent Societies—Aids and Checks to Prog­ress—Notable
Institutions—Character of the People

CHAPTER II. EFFECT OF
THE CALIFORNIA GOLD DISCOVERY. 1548-1849.

The Magic
Power of Gold—A New Oregon—Arrival of Newell—Sharp Traffic—The Discovery
Announced—The Stampede Southward- — Overland Companies—Lassen s
Immigrants—Hancock’s Manuscript —Character of the Oregonians in
California—Their General Sue- cess—Revolutions in Tra. le and Society —Arrival
of VesseU— In­crease in the Prices of Products—Change of Currency—The Ques­tion
of a Mint—Prhato Coinage—Influx of Foreign Silver—Effect tm
Society—Legislation—Immigration.............. 42

Indian
Affairs—Troubles in Cowlitz Valley—Fort Nisqually Attacked—• Arrival of the
United States Ship Massachusetts—A Military Post Established near
Nisqually—Thornton as Sub Indian Agent—Meet­ing of the Legislative
Assembly—Measures Adopted—Judicial Dis­tricts—A Travelling Court of Justice—The
Mounted Ili’le Regiment —Establishment of Military Posts at Fort Hall,
Vancouver, Steil- acoom, and The Dalles- -The Vancouver Claim—General Pergifer
F. Smith—His Drunken Soldiers—Tha Dalles Claim--Tnal and Execu­tion of the
Whitman Murderers

An
Official Yanancy—Gaines Appointed Governor—His Reception in Ore­gon—The
Legislative Assembly in Session—Its Personnel—The Ter­ritorial Library—Location
of the Capital- -Oregon City or Salem— Warm and Prolonged Contest—Two
Legislatures--War between the Law-makers and the Federal Judges—Appeal to
Congress—Salem Declared the Capital—A Sow Session Called—Feuds of the Public
Press—Unpopularity of Gaines—Close of his Term—Lane Appointed his Successor 139

Politics and
Prospecting—Immigration—Ar Era of Discovery—Explora­tions on the Southern
Oregon Seaboard—The California Company—

The
Schooner Samuel Huberts at the Mouths of Rogue River and the Umpqua—
Meeting with the Oregon Party—Laying-out of Lands and Town Sites—Failure of the
Umpqua Company—The Finding of Gold in Various Localities—The Mail
Service—Efforts of Thurston in Congress—Settlement of Port Orford and Discovery
of Coos Bay —The Colony at Port Orford—Indian Attack —The T’Vault Expedi­tion—Massacre—Government
Assistance 174

Politics—Election of
a Delegate—Extinguishment of Indian Titles- -Ind- -in Stipe rintendents and
Agents Appointed—Kindness of the (3 re at Father at W ashington—Appropriations
of Congress—Frauds Arising

PaOS

from the
System- -Eaay Expenditure of Government, Money—Un­popularity of Human
Sympathy—Elficicncy of Superintendent Dart —Thirteen Treaties Effected—Lane
among the Rogue River Indiana and in the Mines—Divers Outrages and
.Retaliations—Military Affair? ~ Rogue River War- The Stronghold—Battle of
Table Rock —Death of Stuart—Kearney’s Prisoners
205

Proposed Territorial
Division—Coast Survey—Light-houses Established —James S. Lawsun-- His
Biography, Public Services, and Contribu­tion to History —Progress North of the
Columbia—South of tha Columbia -Birth of Towns—Creation of Counties—Proposed
New

.
Territory—River Navigation—Improvements at the Claekamaa Rap­ids —On the
Tualatin River—La Creole River -Bridge-building — Work at the Falls of the
Willamette—Fruit Culture—The First Apples Sent to California:—Agricultural
Progress- -Imports and Ex­ports—Society
247

The Donation Law—Its
Provisions and Workings--Attitude of Congress —Powers of the Provisional
Government—Qualification of Voters—

Sun
eys—Rights of Women and Children—Amendments—Preemp­tion Privileges- Duties of
the Surveyor-general—Claimants to Lands of the Hudson’s Bay and Puget Sound
Companies—Mission Claims—Methodists, Presbyterians, and Catholics—Prominent
Land Cases- -I itigation in Regard to the Site of Portland—The Rights of
Settlers—The Caruthers Claim—The Dalles Town-sito Claim—Pre tensions of the
Methodists—Claims of the Catholics—Advantages and Disadvantages of the Donation
System 260

Legislative
Proceedings—Judicial Districts—Public Buildings—Tenor of
Legislation—Instructions to the Congressional Delegate—Harl-ors tnd Shipping-
Lane's Congressional Labors—Charges against Gover­nor Gaines—Ocean Mail
Service—Protection of Overli.nd Immigrants —Military Roads- Division of the
Territory—Federal Appoint­ments--New Judges and their Districts—Whigs and
Democrats— Lane as Governor and Delegate—Alonzo A. fskinner—An Able and Humane
Man—Sketch of his Life and Public Services......................
296

The
Military Called upon—War Declared —Suspension of Business-- Roads
Blockaded—Firing from Ambush—Aldeti at lable Bock— J<anp in Command—Battle—The
Savages Sue for Peace—Armistice —Preliminary Agreement—Hostages Given—Another
Treaty with the Rogue River People—Stipulations—Other Treaties—Cost of the War............................. 311

John W.
Davis as Governor— Legislative Proceedings—Appropriations by Congress—Oregon
Acts and Resolutions—Affairs on the Ump­qua—Light-house Building—Beach
Mining--Indian Disturbances — Palmer’s Superintendence—Settlement of C003
Bay—Explorations and Mountain-climbing—Politics of the Period—The Question of
State Organization—The People not Ready—Hard Times—Deca­dence of the Gold
Epoch- Rise of Farming Interest—Some First Things—Agricultural
Societies—Woollen Mills—Telegraphs—River and Ocean Shipping Interest ana
Disasters—Ward Massacre—Mil­itary Situation.................................... 322

Indian
Affairs in Southern Oregon--The Rogue River People—Extermi­nation
Advocated—Militia Companies—Surprises and Skirmishes— Reservation and Friendly
Indians Protected by tho U. S. Govern­ment against Miners and Settlers—More
Fighting—Volunteers and Regulars —Battle of Grave Creek—Formation of the
Northern and Southern Battalions—Affair at the Meadows—Ranging by the Vol­unteers—The
Ben Wright Massacre....................
369

Grande
Ronde Military Post and Reservation—Driving in «nd Caging the Wild Men—More
Soldiers Required—Other Battalions—Down upon the Red Men—The Spring
Campaign—Affairs along the River— Humanity of the United States Officers and
Agents—Stubborn Brav­ery of Chief John—Councils and Surrenders—Battle of the
Meadows —Smith’s Tactics—Continued Skirmishin" —Giving-up and Coming- in
of the Indiana....................... 307

Legislature
of 1853-6—Measures and Memorials- Legislature of 1856-7 —No Slavei y in Free
Territory—Republican Convention—Election Results—Discussions concerning
Admission—Delegate to Congress—• Campaign Journalism—Constitutional
Convention—The Great Ques­tion of Slavery—No Black Men, Bond or Free—Adoption
of a State Constitution—Legislature of 1857-8—State and Territorial Bodies
—Passenger Service—Legislatures of 1858-9—Admission into the Union.................................... 413

Appaintment of
Officers of the United States Court—Extra Session of the Legislature—Act.) and
Reports—Statu Seal—Ddazon Smith—Re*

uu

publican
Convention—Nominations and Elections—Rupture, in the Democratic Party—Sheil
Elected to Congress -Scheme of a Pacific Republic—Legislative Session of
1860—Nesmith an l Baker Elected U. S. Senators—Influence of Southern
Secession—Thayer Elected to Congress—Lane's Disloyalty—Governor
Whiteaker—Stark, U. S. Senator—Oregon in the War—i\ow Oifi'-ials................................... 442

War
Departments and Commanders—Military 4/iministration of General Harney—Wallen’s
Road Expeditions—Troubles with the Shoshones —Emigration on the Northern and
Southern Routes—Expeditions of Steen and Smith—Campaign against the Shoshones-
-Snake River Massacre—Action of the Legislature—Protection of the Southern
Route—Discovery of the John Day and Powder River Mines—Floods and Cold of
1861-2- Progress of Eastern Oregon460

Companies
and Camps—Steele’s Measures -Halleck Headstrong—-Battle of the Owyhee—Indian
Raids—Sufferings of the Settlers and Trans­portation Men—Movements of
Troops—Attitude of Governor Woods -Free Fighting—Enlistment of Indians to Fight
Indians—Militaiy Reorganization—Among the Lava-beds— Crook in Command—Ex­termination
or Confinement and Death in Reservations
512

Land of the Modoc*—
K.cintpoos, or Captain Jack—Agnnts, Superintend­ents, and Treaties—Keintpoos
Declines to (Jo on a Reservation—■ Raida Truops in
Pursuit—Jack Takes to the Lava-beds—Appoint-

Pies

ment of a
Peace Commissioner—Assassination of Canby, Thom?t, and Sherwood—Jack Invested
in his Stronghold—He Escapes— Crusning Defeat of Troops under Thomas—Captain
Jack Pursued, Caught, and Executed535

Population'—1’eoducth—Places
of Settlement—The First Families os Oregon—Stock-raising and Agriculti
re--Founding of Towns— Land Titles—Ocean Traffic—Ship-building and Commerce—Do­mestic
Matters: Food, Clothing, and Shelter—Society: Religion, Education, and
Morals—Benevolent Societies—Aids and Checks to Progress—Notable
Institutions—Character of the People.

Fourteen
years
have now elapsed since Jason Lee began his missionary station on the east bank
of the Willamette, and five years since the first considerable settlement was
made by an agricultural population from the western states. It is well to pause
a moment in our historical progress and to take a general survey.

First as to
population, there are between ten and twelve thousand white inhabitants and
half-breeds scattered about the valley of the Willamette, with a few in the
valleys of the Columbia, the Cowlitz, and on Puget Sound. Most of these are
stock-raisers and grain-growers. The extent of land cultivated is not great,1
from twenty to fifty acres only being in cereals 011 single farms within reach
of warehouses of the fur

1ln
Hastings’ Or. and Gal., 55-6, the average size of farms is given at 500 acres,
which it- much too high an estimate. There was no need to fence bo much land,
and had it lieen cultivated the crops would have found no market.

Vol.. II. 1

company and the
American merchants. One writer estimated the company’s stock in 1845 at 20,00C
bushels, and that this was not half of the surplus. As many farmers reap from
sixty to sixty-five bushels of wheat to the acre,2 and the poorest
land returns twenty bushels, no great extent of sowing is required to furnish
the market with an amount equal to that named. Agricultural machinery to any
considerable extent is not yet known. Threshing is done by driv­ing horses over
the sheaves strewn in an enclosure, first trodden hard by the hoofs of wild
cattle. In the summer of 1848 Wallace and Wilson of Oregon City construct two
threshing-machines with endless chains, which are henceforward much sought
after.3 The usual price of wheat, fixed by the Hudson’s Bay Company,
is sixty-two and a half cents; but at different times it has been higher, as in
1845, when it reached a dollar and a half a bushel,4 owing to the
inilux of population that year.

The flouring of wheat
is no longer difficult, for there are in 1848 nine grist-mills in the country.5
Nor is it any longer impossible to obtain sawed lumber in the lower parts of
the valley, or on the Columbia, for a larger number of mills furnish material
for build­ing to those who can afford to purchase and provide the means of
transportation.6 The larger number of

2Hines’
Hist. Oregon, 2-12-0. Thornton, in his Or. and Cal., i. 379, gives the whole
production of 1840 at 141,803 bushels, the greatest amount raised in any county
being in Tualatin, and the least in Clatbop. Oats, pease, and potatoes were in
proportion. See also Or. Spectator, July 23, 1840; Howison’s Coast and Country,
29-30. The total wheat crop of 1847 was estimated at 180,COO bushels, £.nd the
surplus at 50,000.

’ Crawford's Nar.,
MS., 104; lions’ Nar., MS., 10.

4Elm's
Saddle-JIaker, MS., 4.

*The grist-mills were built by the
Hudson’s Bay Company near Vancouver; McLoughl:n and the Oregon Milling Company
at Oregon City; by Thomas McKay on French Prairie; by Thomas James O Neal on
the IticknaH in the Applegate Settlement in Polk County; by the Methodist
Mission at Salem; by Lot Whitcomb at Milwaukee, on the right bank of the
Willamette, between Portland and Oregon City; by Meek and Luelling at 1he same
place; and by Whitman at Waiilatpu. About this time a flouring-mill was begun oil Puget Sound. Thornton's Or. and
Cal., i. 330; & F. CaVfomian, April 10, 1848.

6 These
saw-mills were often in connection with the flom ing-mills, as at Oregon City,
Salem, and Vaneouver. But there were several others that were

separate, as the mill
established for saving lumber by Mr Hunsaker at tlie junction of the Willamette
with the Columbia; by Charles McKay on the Tualatin Plains, anti by Hunt near
Astoria. There were other* to the number of 15 in different parts of the
territory. Thornton’s (Jr. and CaL, i. 330; Craw­ford's Nar., MS.. 164.

’George Gay had a
brick dwelling, and Abemethv a brick store; and brick was also used in the
erection of the Catholic church at 8t Pauls. Craw­ford tells us a good deal
about where to look for settlers. Reason Read, he says, was located on Nathan
Crosby's land-claim, a mile below Pettygrove’s dwelling in Portland, on the
right bank of the Willamette, just below a high gravelly bluff, that is, in
what is now the north part of East Portland. Two of the Belknaps were making
brick at this place, assisted by Read. A bouse was being erected for Crosby by
a mechanic named Richardson. Daniel Lown.-,dale hail a tannery west of Portland
town-site. South of it on the same side of the river were the claims of Finice
Caruthcrs, William Johnson, Thomas Stevens, and James Terwilliger. On the
island in front of Stevens’ place lived Richard McCrary, celebrated for making
‘blue ruin’ whiskey out of molasses. James Stevens lived opposite Caruthers, on
the east bank of the Willamette, v. hore he had a cooper-shop, and William
Kilbori.e a warehouse. Three miles above Milwaukee, where Whitcomb, William
Meek, and Luelling were settled, was a German named Piper, attempting to make
pottery. Opposite Oregon City lived S. Thurston, R. Moore, Ii. Bums, and Judge
Lancaster. Philip Foster and other settlers lived cn the Clackamas River, east
of Oregon City. Turning back, and going north of Portland, John II. Couch
claimed the land adjoining that place. Below him were settled at intervals on
the same side of the river William Blackstone, Peter Gill, Doane, and Watts. At
Linntcn there were two settlers, William Dillon and Dick Richards. Opposite to
Watt’s on the east bank was James Loomis, and just abov« him James John. At the
head of Sauv6 Island lived John Miller. Near James Logie’s place, before
mentioned as a dairy-farm of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Alexander McQuinn was
settled, and on different parts of the island Jacob Cline, Joseph Charlton, James
Bybee, Malcolm Smith a Scotch­man, Gilbau a Canadian, and an American named
Walker On the Scappoose plains south cf the island was settled McPherson, a
Scotchman; and during the summer Nelson Hoyt took a claim on the Scappoose. At
Plymouth Rock, now St Helen, lived H. M. Knighton who the year before had
succeeded to the claim of its first settler, Bartholomew White, who was a
cripple, and unable to make improvements. A town was already projected at this
place., though not surveyed till 1849, when a few lots were laid off by James
Brown of Canemah. The survey was subsequently completed by N. II. Tappan and P.
W. Crawford, and mapped by Joseph Trutch, in the spring of 18S1. A few miles
below Knighton were settled the Menill family ami a man named Tulitson. The
only settler in the region of the Dalles was Nathan Olney, who in 1847 took a
claim 3 miles below the present town, on the south side of the river. On the
north side of the Columbia, in the neighborhood of Vancouver, the land formerly
occupied by the fur company, after the settle­ment of the boundary was claimed
to a considerable extent by individuals, British subjects as well as Americans.
Above the fort, Forbes Barclay and Mr Lowe, members of the company, held claims
as individuals, as also Mr Covington, teacher at the fort. On the south side,
opposite Vancouver; John Switzler kept a ferry, which had been much in use
during the Cayuse war as well as in the season of immigrant arrivals. On
Cathlapootle, or Lewis, river there was also a settler. On the Kalan-a River
Jonathan Burpee had taken a claim; he afterward removed to the Cowlitz, where
Thibault, a Canadian,

Only a small portion
of the land being fenced, almost the whole Willamette Valley is open to travel,
and covered with the herds of the settlers, some of whom own between two and
three thousand cattle and horses. Though thus pastured the grass is knee-high
on the plains, and yet more luxuriant on the low lands; in summer the hilly
parts are incarnadine with strawberries.8 Besides the natural
increase of the first importations, not a year has passed since the venture of
the Willamette Cattle Company in 1837, without the introduction of cattle and
horses from California, to which are added those driven from the States an­nually
after 1842/ whence come likewise constantly increasing flocks of sheep. The
towns, as is too often the case, are out of proportion to the rural population.
Oregon City, with six or seven hundred inhabitants, is still the metropolis,
having the advantage of a central

■was living
in charge of the warehouse of tht Hudson's Bay Company, and where d'liing the
.spring and summer Peter W. Crawford, E. West, and one or t^ o others -settled.
Before the autumn of 1819 several families were located near the mouth of the
Cowlitz. H. D. Huntington, ^Nathaniel Stone, David Stone, Seth Catlin, James
Porter, and R. C. Smith were making shingles here for the California market.
Below the Cowlitz, at old Oak Point on the south side of the river, lived John
McLean, a Scotchman. Oak Point Mills on the north side were not built till the
following summer, when they were erected by a man named Dyer for Abemethy and
Clark of Oregon City. At Cathlamet on the north bank of the river lived James
Birnie, who had settled there in 1S4G. There was no settlement between
Cathlamet and Hunt’s Mill, and none between Hunt’s Mill, w here a man named
Spears was living, and Astoria, except the claim of Robert Shortess near Tongue
Point. At Astoria the old fur company’s post was in charge of Mr McKay; and
there were several Americans living there, namely, John McClure, James Welch,
John M. Shively, Van Duscn and family, and others; in all about 30 persons; but
the town was partially surveyed this year by P. W. Craw ford. There were about
a dozen settlers on Clatsop plains, and a town had been projected on Point
Adams by two brothers O’Brien, called New York, nhich never came to anything.
At Baker Bay lived Juhn Edmunds, though the claim belonged to Peter Skeen
Ogden. On Scarborough Hill, just above, a claim had been taken by au English
captain of that name in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. The greater
number of these items have been taken from Crawford's Narrative, MS.; but other
authorities have contributed, namely: Minto’s Early Days, MS.; Weed’s Queen
Charlotte I. Heaped., MS.; Deady’s Hist. Or., MS.; Pettygrove’sOr., MS,;
Lovejoy’s Port­land, MS.; Moss' Pioneer Times, MS.; Brown's Willamette Valley,
MS.; Or. Statutes; Victor’s Oregon and Wash.; Murphy’s Or. Directory, 1; 8.1.
Friend, Oct 15, 1849; Wilkes’ 1\ or.; Palmer’s Journal; Home Missionary Mag.,
Kxii. 63- 4.

position between the
farming country above the falls and the deep-water navigation twelve miles
below; and more capital and improvements are found here than at any other
point.10 It is the only incorporated town as yet in Oregon, the
legislature of 1844 having granted it a charter;11 unimproved lots
are held at from §100 to $500. The canal round the falls which the same
legislature authorized is in progress of con­struction, a wing being thrown out
across the east shout of the river above the falls which form a basin, and is
of great benefit to navigation by affording quiut water for the landing of
boats, which without it were in danger of being carried over the cataract.12

Linn City and
Multnomah City just across the river from the metropolis, languish from
propinquity to a greatness in which they cannot share. Milwaukee, a few miles
below, is still in embryo. Linnton, the city founded during the winter of 1843
by Burnett and McCarver, has Lad but two adult male inhabit­ants, though it
boasts a warehouse for wheat. Hills­boro and Lafayette aspire to the dignity of
county- seats of Tualatin and Yamhill. Corvallis, Albany, and Eugene are
settled by claimants of the land, but do not yet rejoice in the distinction of
an urban appel­

10 Thornton
counts in 1847 a Methodist and a Catholic church, St James, a day-school, a
private boarding-school for young ladies, kept by Mrs Thornton, a
printing-press, and a public library of 300 volumes. Or. and Cat., i. 329-30.
Crawford says there were 5 stores of general merchandise, the Hudson’s ISay
Company’s, Abernethy’s, Couch’s (Cushing & Co.), Moss’, and liobert
Canfield's; and adds that there were 3 ferries across the Willamette at this
place, one a horse ferry, and 2 pulled by hand, and that all were kept busy,
Oregon City being ‘ the great rendezvous for all up and down the river to get
flour.’ Narrative, MS., 154; S. I. Friend, Oct. 15, 1849. l’almer states in
addition that MeLoughlin’s grist-miil ran 3 sets of buhr-stones, and would com­pare
favorably with most mills in the States; but that the Island Mill, then owned
by Abernethy and Beers, -n as a smaller one, and that each had a saw-mill
attached which cut a great deal of plank for the new arrivals. Jour­nal, 85-6.
Ihere were 2 hotels, the Oregon House, which was built in 1844, costing
§44,000, and which was tom down in Juno 1871. The other was called the City
Hotel. McLouglilin's residence, built about 1845, was a large building for
those times, and was later the I’innegas Hotel. Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 30;
Pori laud Advocate, June 3, 1871; Paeon’s Mere. Life Or.City, MS., 18; Harvey’s
Life of McLaughlin, MS., 34; Niks1 Peg., lxx. 341.

"Abernethy was
the first mayor, and .Lovejoy the second; McLoughlin was also mayor.

12Niles’
Beg., lxviii. 84; Or. Spectator, Feb. 19, 1846.

lation. Champoeg had
been laid off as a town by Newell, but is so in name only. Close by is another
river town, of about equal importance, owned by Abernethy and Beers, which is
called Butte ville. Just above the falls Hedges has laid off the town of
Canemah. Besides these there are a number of settlements named after the chief
families, such as Hembree’s settlement in Yamhill County, Applegate’s and
Ford’s in Polk, and Waldo’s and Howell’s in Marion. Hamlets prom­ising to be
towns are Salem, Portland, Vancouver, and Astoria.

I have already
mentioned the disposition made of the missionary claims and property at Salem,
and that 011 the dissolution of the Methodist Mission the Ore­gon Institute was
sold, with the land claimed as be­longing to it, to the board of trustees. But
as there was no law under the provisional government for the incorporation of
such bodies, or any under which they could hold a mile square of land for the
use of the in­stitute, W. H. Wilson, H. B. Brewer, D. Leslie, and L. H. Judson
resorted to the plan of extending their four land-claims in such a manner as to
make their corners meet in the centre of the institute claim, under that
provision in the land law allowing claims to be held by a partnership of two or
more persons; and by giving bonds to the trustees of the institute to perform
this act of trust for the benefit of the board, till it should become
incorporated and able to hold the land in its own right.

In March 1840 Wilson
was authorized to act as agent for the board, and was put in possession of the
premises. In May following lie was empowered to sell lots, and allowed a
compensation of seven per cent on all sales effected. During the summer a por­tion
of the claim was sold to J. L. Parrish, David Leslie, and C. Craft, at twelve
dollars an acre; and Wilson was further authorized to sell the water-power or
mill-site, and as much land with it as might be

thought advisable;
also to begin the sale by public auction of the town lots, as surveyed for that
pur­pose, the first sale to take place September 10, 1846. Only half a dozen
families were there previous to this time.13

In July 1847 a bond
was signed by YvT:lson, the conditions of which were the forfeiture
of $100,000, or the fulfilment of the following terms: That he should hold in
trust the six hundred and forty acres thrown off from the land-claims above
mentioned; that he should pay to the missionary society of the Methodist Epis­copal
church of Oregon and to the Oregon Institute certain sums amounting to $6,000;
that he should use all diligence to perfect a title to the institute claim, and
when so perfected convey to the first annual con­ference of the Methodist
church, which should be established in Oregon by the general conference of the
United States, in trust, such title as he himself had obtained to sixty acres
known as the ‘institute reserve/ on which the institute building was situated—•
for which services he was to receive one tbird of the money derived from the
sale of town lots on the un­reserved portion of the six hundred and forty acres
comprised in the Salem town-site and belonging to the several claimants. Under
this arrangement, in 1848, Wilson and his wife were residing in the institute
building on the reserved sixty acres, Mrs Wilson having charge of the school,
while the agency of the town property remained with her husband.

The subsequent
history of Salem town-site belongs to a later period, but may be briefly given
here. When the Oregon donation law was passed, which gave to the wife half of
the mile square of land em­braced in the donation, Wilson had the dividing line
on his land run in such a manner as to throw the reserve with the institute
building, covered by his claim, upon the wife’s portion ; and Mrs Wilson being

under no legal
obligation to make over anything to the Oregon conference, in trust for the
institute, re­fused to listen to the protests of the trustees so neatly tricked
out of their cherished educational enterprise. In this condition the institute
languished till 1854, when a settlement was effected by the restoration of the
reserved sixty acres to the trustees of the Willa­mette University, and two
thirds of the unsold re­mains of the south-west quarter of the Salem town- site
which Wilson was bound to hold for the use of that institution. Whether the
restoration was an act of honor or of necessity I will not here discuss; the
act of congress under which the territory was organ­ized recognized as binding
all bonds and obligations entered into under the provisional government.14
In later years some important lawsuits grew out of the pretensions of Wilson’s
heirs, to an interest in lots sold by him while acting agent for the trustees
of the town-site.15

Portland in 1848 had
but two frame buildings, one the residence of F. W. Pettygrove, who had re­moved
from Oregon City to this hamlet on the river’s edge, and the other belonging to
Thomas Carter. Several log-houses had been erected, but the place had no trade
except a little from the Tualatin plains lying to the south, beyond the heavily
timbered high­lands in that direction.

The first owner of
the Portland land-claim was William Overton, a Tennesseean, who came to Oregon
about 1843, and presently took possession of the place, where he made shingles
for a time, but being of a restless disposition went to the Sandwich Islands,
and returning dissatisfied and out of health, resolved to go to Texas. Meeting
with A. L. Lovejoy at Van­couver, and returning with him to Portland in a
canoe, he offered to resign the claim to him, but subsequently

changed his mind,
thinking to remain, yet giving Lovejoy half, on condition that he would aid in
im­proving it; for the latter, as he says in his Founding of Portland, MS.,
30-34, observed the masts and booms of vessels which had been left there, and
it occurred to him that this was the place for a town. So rarely did shipping
come to Oregon in these days, and more rarely still into the Willamette River,
that the possibility or need of a seaport or harbor town away from the Columbia
does not appear to have been seriously entertained up to this time.

After some clearing,
preparatory to building a

house, Overton again
determined to leave Oregon,

and sold his half of
the land to F. W. Pettwrove for

. ^ . a small sum and
went to Texas, where it has been said

he was hanged.16
Lovejoy and Pettygrove then erected the first house in the winter of 1845, the
locality being on what is now Washington street at the corner of Front street,
it being built of logs covered with shingles. Into this building Pettygrove
moved half of his stock of goods in the spring of 1845, and with Lovejoy opened
a road to the farming lands of Tual­atin County from which the traffic of the
imperial city was expected to come.

The town was
partially surveyed by H. X. A'. Short, the initial point being Washington
street and the survey extending down the river a short distance. The naming of
it was decided by the tossing of a cop­per coin, Pettygrove, who was from
Maine, gaining the right to call it Portland, against Lovejoy, who was from
Massachusetts and wished to name the new town Boston. A few stragglers gathered
there, and during the Cayuse war when the volunteer companies organ­ized at
Portland, and crossing the river took the road to Switzler’s ferry opposite
Vancouver, it began to be apparent that it was a more convenient point of de­parture
and arrival in regard to the Columbia than

Oregon City. But it
made no material progress till a conjunction of remarkable events in 1848
called it into active life and permanent prosperity. Before this happened,
however, Lovejoyhad sold his interest to Benjamin Stark; and Daniel Lownsdale
in Sep­tember of this year purchased Pettygrove’s share, paying for it 65,000
worth of leather which he had made at his tannery adjoining the town-site. The
two founders of Portland thus transferred their own­ership, which fell at a
fortunate moment into the hands of Daniel Lownsdale, Stephen Coffin, and W. W.
Chapman.17

In 1848 Henry
Williamson, the same who claimed unsuccessfully near Fort Vancouver in 1845,
employed P. W. Crawford to lay out a town on the present site of Vancouver, and
about five hundred lots were sur­veyed, mapped, and recorded in the recorder’s
books at Oregon City, according to the law governing town- sites; the same
survey long ruling in laying out streets, blocks, and lots. But the prospects
for a city were blighted by the adverse claim of Ainas Short, an immigrant of
1847, who settled first at Linnton, then removed to Sauve Island where he was
engaged in slaughtering Spanish cattle, but who 'finally took six hundred and
forty acres below Fort Vancouver, Will­iamson who still claimed the land being
absent at the time, having gone to Indiana for a wife. The land law of Oregon,
in order to give young men this oppor­tunity of fulfilling marriage engagements
without loss, provided that by paying into the treasury of the territory the
sum of five dollars a year, they could be absent from their claims for two
consecutive years, or long enough to go to the States and return.

In Williamson’s case
the law proved ineffectual.

17Lovejoy’8
Founding of Portland, MS., passim; Brigg’s Port Townsend, MS., 0; Sylvester’s
Olympia, MS., 4, 5; Ilancoch’s Thirteen Years, MS., 04. For an account of the
subsequent litigation, not important to this history, see Burke v. Lowntdale,
Appellee’s Brief, 12; Or. Laws, I860, 5-8; Deady'n Ilist. Or., MS., 12-13. Some
mention will be made of this in treating of the effects of the donation law on
town-sites.

She whom he was to
marry died before he reached Indiana, and on returning still unmarried, he
found Short in possession of his claim; and although he was at the expense of
surveying, and a house was put up by William Fellows, who left his property in
the keeping of one Kellogg, Short gave Williamson so much trouble that he
finally abandoned the claim and went to California to seek a fortune in the
mines. The cottonwood tree which Crawford made the start­ing-point of his
survey, and which was taken as the corner of the United States military post in
1850, was standing in 1878. The passage of the donation law brought up the
question of titles to Vancouver, but as these arguments and decisions were not
con­sidered till after the territory of Washington was set off from Oregon, I
will leave them to be discussed in that portion of this work. Astoria, never
having been the seat of a mission, either Protestant or Cath­olic, and being on
soil acknowledged from the first settlement as American, had little or no
trouble about titles, and it was only necessary to settle with the government
when a place for a military post was tem­porarily required.

The practice of
jumping, as the act of trespassing on land claimed by another was called,
became more common as the time was supposed to approach when congress would
make the long-promised donation to actual settlers, and every man desired to be
upon the choicest spot within his reach. It did not matter to the intruder
whether the person displaced were Eng­lish or American. Any slight flaw in the
proceedings or neglect in the customary observances rendered the claimant
liable to be crowded off his land. But when these intrusions became frequent
enough to attract the attention of the right-minded, their will was made known
at public meetings held in all parts of the ter­ritory, and all persons were
warned against violating the rights of others. They were told that if the

existing law would
not prevent trespass the legisla­ture should make one that would prove
effectual.13 Thus warned, the envious and the grasping were gen­erally
restrained, and claim-jumping never assumed alarming proportions in Oregon.
Considering the changes made every year in the population of the country,
public sentiment had much weight with the people, and self-government attained
a position of dignity.

Although no claimant
could sell the land he held, he could abandon possession and sell the improve­ments,
and the transaction vested in the purchaser all the rights of the former
occupant. In this manner the land changed occupants as freely as if the title
had been in the original possessor, and 110 serious in­convenience was
experienced19 for the want of it.

Few laws were enacted
at the session of 1847, as it was believed unnecessary in view of the expected
near approach of government by the United States. But the advancing settlement
of the country demand­ing that the county boundaries should be fixed, and new
ones created, the legislature of 1847 established the counties of Linn and
Benton, one extending east to the Rocky Mountains, the other west to the
Pacific Ocean, and both south to the latitude 42°.20

The construction of a
number of roads was also au­thorized, the longer ones being from Portland to
M&ry River, and from Multnomah City to the same place, and across the
Cascade Mountains by the way of the Santiam River to intercept the old emigrant
road in the valley of the Malheur, or east of there, from which it will be seen
that there was still a conviction in some minds that a pass existed which would
lead travellers into the heart of the valley. That no such pass was discovered
in 1848, or until long after annual caravans of wagons and cattle from the
States ceased

to demand it, is also
true.21 But it was a benefit to the country at large that a motive
existed for annual exploring expeditions, each one of which brought into notice
some new and favorable situations for settlements, besides promoting
discoveries of its min­eral resources of importance to its future develop­ment.22

On account of the
unusual and late rains in the summer of 1847, the large immigration which
greatly increased the home consumption, and the Cayuse war which reduced the
number of producers, the colony experienced a depression in business and a rise
in prices which was the nearest approach to financial distress which the
country had yet sulfered. Farm­ing utensils were scarce and dear, cast-iron
ploughs selling at forty-five dollars.® Other tools were equally scarce, often
requiring a man who needed an axe to travel a long distance to procure one
second-hand at a high price. This scarcity led to the manufacture of axes at
Vancouver, for the company’s own hunters and trappers, before spoken of as
exciting the suspi­cion of the Americans. Nails brought from twenty to
twenty-five cents per pound; iron twelve and a half. Groceries were high,
coffee bringing fifty cents a pound; tea a dollar and a half; coarse Sandwich
Island sugar twelve and fifteen cents; common mo­lasses fifty cents a gallon.
Coarse cottons brought twenty and twenty-five cents a yard; four-point blankets
five dollars a single one; but ready-made common clothing for men could be
bought cheap. Flour was selling in the spring for four and five dollars a
barrel, and potatoes at fifty cents a bushel;

21It was discovered ■within a
few years, anil is known as Minto’s Pass. A road leading from Albany to eastern
Oregon through this pass was opened about 1877.

22Mention is madt at this early day of
aiscoveries of coal, iron, copper, plumbago, mineral paint, and valuable
building and lime stone. Thornton’s Or. and Gal., i. 331 17; S. /<’.
Californian, April 19, 1848.

The evil of high
prices was aggravated by the nature of the currency, which was government
scrip, orders on merchants, and wheat; the former, though drawing interest,
being of uncertain value owing to the state of the colonial treasury which had
never contained money equal to the face of the government’s promises to pay.
The law making orders on mer­chants currency constituted the merchant a banker
without any security for his solvency, and the value of wheat was liable to fluctuation.
There were, be­sides, different kinds of orders. An Abernethy order was not
good for some articles. A Hudson’s Bay order might have a cash value, or a
beaver-skin value. In making a trade a man was paid in Couch, Aber­nethy, or
Hudson’s Bay currency, all differing in value.23 The legislature of
1847 so far amended the currency act as to make gold and silver the only law­ful
tender for the payment of judgments rendered in the courts, where no special
contract existed to the contrary; but making treasury drafts lawful tender in
payment of taxes, or in compensation for the ser­vices of the officers or
agents of the territory, unless otherwise provided by law; and providing that
all costs of any suit at law should be paid in the same kind of money for which
judgment might be rendered.

This relief was
rather on the side of the litigants than the people at large. Merchants’ paper
was worth as much as the standing of the merchant. Nowhere in the country,
except at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s store, would an order pass at par.20
The inconvenience of paying for the simplest article by orders on wheat in
warehouse was annoying both to purchaser and seller. The first money brought
into the country in any quantity was a barrel of silver dollars received at

“S. F. California
Star, Juh 10, 1847; Crawford's Xar., MS., 110-20.

20Lovejoy’s Portland, MS., 35-6.

Port
Townsend, MS., 11-13.

Vancouver to bo paid
in monthly sums to the crew of the Modeste.2T The subsequent
overland arrivals brought some coin, though not enough to remedy the evil.

One effect of the
condition of trade in the colony was to check credit, which in itself would not
have been injurious, perhaps,28 had it not also tended to discourage
labor. A mechanic who worked for a stated price was not willing to take
whatever might be given him in return for his labor.20

Another effect of
such a method was to prevent vessels coming to Oregon to trade.30
The number of

27Roberts’ Recollections, MS., 21; Ebbert’s
Trapper's Life, MS., 40.

28Ho wison relates that he found many
families who, rather than incur debt, had lived during their first year in the
cuuntry entirely on boiled wheat and salt salmon, the men going without hat or
shoes while putting in and harvest­ing their first crop. Coast and Country, 10.

59Moss gives en illustration of this check
to industry. A man named Anderson was employed by A'uemethy in his saw-mill,
and labored night and day. Abemethy'3 stock of goods was not large or well
graded, and he would sell certain articles only for cash, even when his own
notes were presented. Anderson had purchased part of a beef, w hich he wished
to salt for family use, but salt being one of the articles for which cash was
the equivalent at Abernathy's store, he was refused it, though Abernethy was
owing him, and he was obliged to go to the fur company’s store for it. Pioneer
Times, MS., 40-3._

30Herewith I summarize the Oregon ocean
traffic for the 14 years since tho first American settlement, most of v, hich
occurrences are mentioned elsewhere. Tha Hudson’s Bay Company employed in that
period the barks Ganymede, Forager, Nereid, Columbia, Cowlitz, Diamond,
Vancouver, Wave, Brothers, Janet, Admiral Moorsoin, the brig Mary Dare, the
schooner Cadboro, and the steamer Beaver, several of them owned by the company.
The Beaver, after her first appcarance in the river in 1836, was used in the
coast trade north of the Columbia. The barks Cowlitz, Columbia, Vancouver, and
the schooner Cadboro crossed the bar of the Columbia more frequently than any
other ves­sels from 1836 to 1848. The captains engaged in the English service
wero Eales, Royal, Home, Thompson, McNeil, Duncan, Fowler, Brotchie, Mori
Darby, Heath, Dring, Flere, Weyington, Cooper, McKniglit, Scarborough and
Humphreys, who were not always in command of the same vessel. There was the
annual vessel to and from England, but the others were employed in trading
along the coast, and between the Columbia River and the Sandwich Islands, or
California, their voyages extending sometimes to Valparaiso, from which parts
they brought the few passengers coming to Oregon.

The first American
vessel to enter the Columbia after the arrh al of the missionaries was the brig
Loriot, Captain Bancroft, ’n Dec. 1836; the second the Diana, Captain W. S.
Hinckley, May 1837; the third the Lausanne, Captain Spaulding, May 1840. None
of these came for the purpose of trade. There is mention in the 25th Cong., 3d
Sees., U. S. Com. Eept. 101, 58, of the ship Joseph Peabody fitting out for the
Northwest Coast, but she did not enter the Cilumbia so far as I can learn. In
August 1840 the first American trader since Wyeth arrived. This was the brig
Maryland, Captain John H. Couch, from Newburyport, belonging to the house of
Cushing & Co. She took a few fish and left the river in the autunm never to
return. In April 1841

American vessels
which brought goods to the Colum­bia or carried away the products of the colony
was small. Since 1834 the bar of the Columbia had been crossed by American
vessels, coming in and going out, fifty-four times. The list of American
vessels entering during this period comprised twenty-two of

the second trader
appeared, the Thomas II Perkin’!, Captain Varney. She remained through the
summer, the Hudson’s Bay Company finally purchas­ing her cargo and chartering
the vessel to get rid of her. Then came the U. S. exploring expedition the same
year, whose vessels did not enter the Columbia owing to the loss of the P(acock
on the bar. After this disaster Wilkes bought the charter and the name of the
Perkins was changed to the Oregon, and she left the river ■with the
shipwrecked mariners for California. On the 2d of April 1842 Captain Couch
reappeared with a new vessel, the Qhencmus, named after the chief of the
Chinooks. He brought a cargo of goods -which he took to Oregon City, where he
established the first American trading-house in the Willamette Valley, and also
a small fishery on the Columbia. She sailed for Newburyport in the autumn. On
this vessel came Richard Ekin from Liver­pool to Valparaiso, the Sandwich
Islands, and thence to Oregon. He settled near Salem and was the first
saddle-maker. From which circumstance I call his dictation The. Saddle-Maker.
Another American vessel whose name docs not appear, but whose captain's name
was Chapman, entered the river April 10th to trade and fish, and remained till
autumn. She sold liquor to the Clatsop and other savages, and occasioned much
discord and bloodshed in spite of tho protests of the missionaries. In May 1843
the ship Fama, Captain Nye, arrived withsupplies for the missions. She brought
several settlers, namely: Philip Fos­ter, wife, and 4 children; F. W.
Pettygrove, wife, and child; Peter F. Hatch, wife and child; and Nathan I\
Mack. Pettygrove brought a stock of goods and began trade at Oregon City. In
August of the same year another vessel of the Newburyport Company arrived with
Indian goods, and some articles of tradp for settlers. This was the bark
Pallas, Captain Sylvester; she remained until November, when she sailed for the
Islands and was sold there, Sylvester returning to Oregon the following April
1844 in the Chenamus, Captain ('ouch, which had made a voyage to Ncnburypoit
and returned. She brought from Ilonolul i Horace Holden and family, ■who
settled in Oregon; also a Mr Cooper, wife and boy; Mr and Mrs Burton and 3
children, besides Griffin, Tidd, and Goodhue. The Chenamus seems to have made a
voyage to tht Islands in the spring of 1845, in command of Sylvester, and to
have left there June 12th to return to the Columbia This was the lirst direct
traue with the Islands. The Chenamus brought as passengers Hathaway, Weston,
Roberts, John Orank- liite, and Elon Fellows. She sailed for Newburyport in the
winter of 1845, and did not mum to Oregon. In the summer Of 1844 the British
sloop-of

31odeste, Captain Baillie, entered the
Columbia and remained a short time at Vancouver. On the 31st of July the
Belgian ship L’Infatigable entered the Columbia by the before undiscovered
south channel, escaping wreck, to the sui prise of all beholders. She brought
De Smet and a Catholic reenforce­ment for the missions of Oregon. In April 1845
the Swedish brig full visited the Columbia; she was from China: Shilliber,
supercargo. Captain Worn- grew remained but a short time. On the 14th of
October the Amer­ican bark, Toulon. Captain Nathaniel Crosby, from New York,
arrived with goods for Pettygrove’s trading-houses in Oregon City and Portland-
Benjamin Stark jun., supercargo. In September the British sloop-of-war Modeste.
returned to the Columbia, where she remained till June 1847. The British
ship-of-war America, Captain Gordon, was iu Puget Sound during the summer. In
the spring of IMG the Toulon made a voyage to the ifa waiian Islands, returning
June 24th with a cargo of sugar, molasses, coffee,

IMPORTS AND
PASSENGERS.

17

all classes. Of these
in the first six years not one was a trader; in the following six years seven
were traders, but only four brought cargoes to sell to the settlers, and these
of an ill-assorted hind. From March 1847 to August 1848 nine different American
vessels visited the Columbia, of which one brought a

cotton, woollen
goods, and hardware; also a number of passengers, viz.: Mrs Whitiaker and 3
children, and Shelly, Armstrong, Rogers, Overton, Norris, Brothers, Powell, and
French and 2 sons. The Toulon continued to run to the Islands for several
years. On the 26th of June 1S4G the American liark Mariposa, Captain Parsons,
arrived from New York with goods consigned to Benjamin Stark jun., with Mr and
Miss Wadsworth as passengers. The Mari- pona remained but a few weeks in the
river. On the 18th of July the U. S. schooner Shark, Captain Neil M. Ilowison,
entered the Columbia, narrowly escaping shipwreck on the Chinook Shoal. She
remained till Sept., and was wrecked going out of the mouth of the river.
During the summer the British frigate Fistjard, Captain Duntre, was stationed
in Puget Sound. Aboutthe lstof March 1847 the brig Henry, Captain William K.
Kilborne, arrived from New- bnryport for the purpose of establishing a. new
trading-liouse at Oregon City. The Henry brought as passengers Mrs Kilborne and
children; G. W. Lawton, a partner in the venture; D. Good, wife, and 2
children; Mrs Wilson and 2 children; H. Swasey and wife; R. Douglas, D.
Markwood, C. C. Shaw, B, R. Marcellus, a d S. C. Reeves, who became the first
pilot on the Columbia River bar. The goods brought by the Henry were of greater
variety then aijj itock before it; but they were also in great part second-hand
arti­cles of furniture on which an enormous profit was made, but which sold
readily owing to the great need of stoves, crockery, cabinet-ware, mirrors, ind
other like conveniences of life. The Henry was placed under the com- Tiand of
Captain Bray, and was employed trading to California, and the Islands. On the
24th of March the brig (Jammodore Stockton, Captain Young, from San Francisco,
arrived, probably for lumber, as she returned in April. The Stockton w as the
old Pallas renamed. On the 14th of June the American ship Brutus, Captain
Adams, from Boston and San Francisco, arrived, and remained in the river
several weeks for a cargo. On the 22d of the same month tho American bark
Whiton, Captain Gelston, from Monterey, arrived, ilso for a cargo; and on the
27th the American ship Mount Vernon, Captain

0.J. Given, from Oahu, also entered the
river. By the Whiton there came' as settlers Rev. William Roberts, wife and 2
children, Rev. J. H. Wilbur, wife, and daughter, Edward F. Folger, Richard
Andrews, George Whitlock, md J. M. Stanley, the latter a painter seeking Indian
rtudies for pictures. The Whiton returned to California and made another visit
to the Columbia River in September. On the 13th of August there arrived from
Brest, France, the bark L’i'toile da Matin, Captain Menes, with Archbishop
Blanchet and a Catholic reenforcement of 21 persons, viz.: Three Jesuit
priests, Gaetz, Gazzoli, Menestrey, and 3 lay brothers; 5 secular priests, Le
Bas, Mc­Cormick, Deleveau, Pretot, and Veyret; 2 deacons, B. Delorme, and J. F.
Jayol; and one clcric, T. Mesplie; and 7 sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Captain
Menes afterwards engaged in merchandising in Oregon. L’Etoile du Matin was
wrecked on the bar. On the 10th of March 1848 the U. S. trans­port Anita,
Midshipman Woodworth in command, arrived in the Columbia to recuit for the army
in Mexico, and remained until the 22d of April. About this time the American
brig Eveline, Captain Goodwin, entered the Columbia, for a cargo of lumber; she
left the river May 7th. The Hawaiian schooner Mary Ann, Captain Belcham, was
also in the river in April. The 8tli of May the Hudson's Bay Company’s bark
Vancouver, Captain Duncan, was lost after crossing the bar, with a cargo from
London valued at £30,000, and umn- H.bt. Oil., Vol. II. 2

stock of general
merchandise, and the rest had come for provisions and lumber, chiefly for California.
All the commerce of the country not carried on by these few vessels, most of
them arriving and departing but once, was enjoyed by the British fur company,
whose barks formed regular lines to the Sandwich Islands, California, and
Sitka.

It happened that
during 1846, the year following the incoming of three thousand persons, not a
single ship from the Atlantic ports arrived at Oregon with merchandise, and
that all the supplies for the year were brought from the Islands by the Toulon,
the sole American vessel owned by an Oregon company, the Chenamus having gone
home. This state of affairs occasioned much discontent, and an examina­tion
into causes. The principal grievance presented was the rule of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, which prohibited their vessels from carrying goods for per­sons not
concerned with them. But the owners of the only two American vessels employed
in trausjK>r- tation between the Columbia and other ports had

sured. She mi in
cha”ge of the pilot, but missed stays when too near the south sands, and struck
where the Shark was wrecked 2 years before. On the 27th of July the American
schooner Honolulu, Cantain New ell, entered the Columbia for provisions; and
about the same time1 the British war-ship Con­stance, Uaptain
Courtenay, arrived in Puget Sound. The Hawaiian schooner Starling, Captain
Menzies, arrived the 10th of August in the river for a cargo of provisions. The
Henry returned from California at the same time, with the news of the
gold-discovery. which discovery opened a new era in the traffic of the
Columbia. The close of the period was maiked by the wreck of the whale- ship
Maine, Captain Netcher, w-ith 1,400 barrels of whale-oii, 150 of sperm-oil,
anil 14,000 pounds of bone. She hail been two years from Fairhaven, Mass., and
was a total loss. The American schooner ilaria, Captain De Witt, was in the
river at the pame time, for a cargo of flour for San Francisco; also the sloop
Peacock, Captain Gier; the biig&a&trce, Captain Crosby; and the
schooner Ann, Captain Melton; all for cargoes of flour and lumber for San
Francisco. Later in the summer the Harpooner, Captain Morice, was in the river.
The sources from which I have gleaned this information are McLovghlin’s Private
Papers, 2d ser., MS.; Douglas’ Private Papers, 2d ser., MS; a list male by
Joseph Ilardisty of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and published in the Or.
Spectator, Aug. 19, 1851; Parker’s Journal; Kelley’s Colonization of Or.;
Townsend’s Xar.; Lee and Front’s Or.; Hines’ Or. Hist.; 27th Cong., 3d Sess.,

adopted the same
rule, and refused to carry wheat, lumber, or any other productions of the
country, for private individuals, having freight enough of their own.

The granaries and
flouring-mills of the country were rapidly becoming overstocked; lumber, laths,
and shingles were being made much faster than they could be disposed of, and
there was no way to rid the colony of the over-production, while money was
absolutely required for certain classes of goods. As it was de­clared by one of
the leading colonists, “the best families in the country are eating their meals
and drinking their tea and coffee—when our merchants can afford it—from tin
plates and cups;31 many articles of cloth­ing and other things
actually necessary for our con­sumption are not to be purchased in the country;
our children are growing up in ignorance for want of school-books to educate
them; and there has not been a plough-mould in the country for many months.”

In the autumn of 1845
salt became scarce, and was raised in price from sixty-two and a half cents a
bushel to two dollars at McLouglilin’s store in Oregon City. The American
merchants, Stark and Pettygrove, saw an opportunity of securing a monopoly of
the salmon trade by withholding their salt, a cash article, from market, at any
price, and many families were thereby compelled to dispense with this condiment
for month's. Such was the enmity of the people, however, toward McLoughlin as a
British trader, that it was seriously proposed in Yamhill County to take by
force the salt of the doctor, who was sell ng it, rather than to rob the
American merchants who refused to sell.32

It was deemed a
hardship while iiour brought from ten to fifteen dollars a barrel in the
Hawaiian Islands,

81 Me
Carver, in Or. Spectator, July 4, 1846. Thornton says Mr Waymire paid
Pettygrove, at Portland, $2.50 ‘for 6 very plain cups and saucers, which could
be had in the States for 25 cents; and the same for 6 very ordinary and plain
plates. Wheat at that time was worth $1 per bushel.’ Or. and Gal.t
ii. 52

52Bacon's Merc. Life in Or. City, MS., 22,

and New York
merchants made a profit by shipping it from Atlantic ports where wheat was
worth more than twice its Oregon price, that for want of shipping, the fur
company and two or three American mer­chants should be privileged to enjoy all
the benefits of such a market, the farmers at the same time being kept in debt
to the merchants by the low price of wheat. Many long articles were published
in the Spectator exhibiting the enormous injury sustained on the one hand and
the extraordinary profits enjoyed on the other, some of which were answered by
James Douglas, who was annoyed by these attacks, for it was always the British
and not the American traders who were blamed for taking advantage of their
oppor­tunity. The fur company had 110 right to avail them­selves of the
circumstances causing fluctuation; only the Americans might fatten themselves
on the wants of the people. If the fur company kept down the price of wheat,
the American merchants forced up the price of merchandise, and if the former
occasionally made out a cargo by carrying the flour or lumber of their
neighbors to the Islands, they charged them as much as a vessel coming all the
way out from New York would do, and for a passage to Honolulu one hundred
dollars. In the summer of 18 4G the super­cargo of the Toulon, Benjamin Stark,
jun., after carry­ing out flour for Abernethy, refused to take the return
freight except upon such terms as to make acceptance out of the question; his
object being to get his own goods first to market and obtain the price consequent
011 the scarcity of the supply.33 Palmer relates that the American
merchants petitioned the Hudson’s Bay Company to advance their prices; and that
it was agreed to sell to Americans at a higher price than that charged to their
own people, an arrangement that lasted for two years.84

The colonists felt
that instead of being half-clad, and deprived of the customary conveniences of
living, they ought to be selling from the abundance of their farms to the
American fleet in the Pacific, and reaching out toward the islands of the ocean
aud to China with ships of their own. To remedy the evil and bring about the
result aspired to, a plan was pro­posed through the Spectator, whereby without
money a joint-stock company should be organized for carry­ing 011 the commerce
of the colony in opposition to the merchants, British or American. This plan
was to make the capital stock consist of six hundred thousand or eight hundred
thousand bushels of wheat divided into shares of one hundred bushels each. Wb«n
the stock should be taken and officers elected, bonds should be executed for as
much money as would buy or build a schooner and buy or erect a grist-mill.

A meeting was called
for the 16th of January 1847, to be held at the Methodist meeting-house in
Tuala­tin plains. Two meeting were held, but the conclu­sion arrived at was
adverse to a chartered company; the plan adopted for disposing of their surplus
wheat being to select anil authorize an agent at Oregon City to receive and
sell the grain, and import the goods desired by the owners. A committee was
chosen to consider proposals from persons bidding, and Governor Abernethy was
selected as miller, agent, and importer. Twenty-eight shares were taken at the
second meet­ing in Yamhill. An invitation was extended to other counties to
hold meetings, correspond, and fit them­selves intelligently to carry forward
the project, which ultimately would bring about the formation of a char­tered
company.35 The scheme appeared to be on the

way to success, wlicn
an unlooked-for check was re­ceived in the loss of a good portion of the year’s
crop, by late rains which damaged the grain in the fields. This deficiency was
followed by the large immigration of that year which raised the price of wheat
to double its former value, and rendered unnecessary the plan of exporting it;
while the Cayuse war, following closely upon these events, absorbed much of the
surplus means of the colony.

Previous to 1848 the
trade of Oregon was with the Hawaiian Islands principally, and the exports
amounted in 1847 to $54,784.99.3a This trade fell off in 1848 to
^14,986.57; not on account of a decrease in ex­ports which had in fact been
largely augmented, as the increase in the shipping shows, but from being
diverted to California by the American conquest and settlement; the demand for
lumber and flour begin­ning some months before the discovery of gold.37

The colonial period
of Oregon, which may be likened to man’s infancy, and which had struggled
through numerous disorders peculiar to this phase of existence, had still to
contend against the constantly recurring nakedness. From the fact that down to
the close of 1848 only five ill-assorted cargoes of American goods had arrived
from Atlantic ports,3S which were partially

3f. Polynesian, iv.
135. I notice an advertisement in S. I. Friend, April 1345, where Albert E.
Wilson, at Astoria, offers his services as commission merchant to persons at
the Islands.

■7
Thornton's Or. and Cal., ii. 03.

36The cargo of the Tonlon, the last and
largest supply down to the close of 1845, consisted of ‘20 cases wooden clocks,
20 bbls. dried apples, 3 small mills,

replenished by
purchases of groceries made in the Sandwich Islands, and that only the last
cargo, that of the Henry in 1847, brought out any assortment of goods for
women’s wear,39 it is strikingly apparent that the greatest want in
Oregon was the want of clothes.

The children of some
of the foremost men in the farming districts attended school with but a single
gar­ment, which was made of coarse cotton sheeting dyed with copperas a tawny
yellow. During the Cayuse war some young house-keepers cut up their only pair
of sheets to make shirts for their husbands. Some women, as well as men,
dressed in buckskin, and in­stead of in ermine justice was forced to appear in
blue shirts and with bare feet.40 And this notwithstanding

«O

the annual ship-load
ot Hudson’s Bay goods. In 1848 not a single vessel loaded with goods for Oregon
entered the river, and to heighten the destitution the fur company’s bark Vancouver
was lost at the en­trance to the river on the 8tli of May, with a valuable
cargo of the articles most in demand, which were agri­cultural implements and
dry-goods, in addition to the usual stock in trade. Instead of the wives anti
dans'll- # t ~ ters of the colonists being clad in garments becoming
their sex and position, the natives of the lower Columbia decked in damaged
English silks41 picked up along the beach, gathered in great glee
their summer crop of blackberries among the mountains. The wreck of the
Vancouver was a great shock to the colony. A large amount of grain had been
sown in anticipation of the

4,1These facts I have gathered from
conversations with many of the pio­neers. They have also been alluded to in
print by Burnett, Adams, Moss, Nesmith, and Mints, and in most of the
manuscript authorities, lloss tells an anecdote of Straight when he was elected
to the legislature in 1845. He had no coat, and was distressed on account of
the appearance he should make in. a striped shirt. Moss having just been so
fortunate as to have a coat made by a tailor sold it to him fur $40 in scrip,
which has never been redeemed. Pioneer Times, MS., 43-4.

*Crawford’s Nar., MS., 147; S. F.
Californian, May 24, 1848.

demand in California
for flour, which it would be im­possible to harvest with the means at hand; and
al­though by some rude appliances the loss was partially overcome it could not
be wholly redeemed. To add to their misfortunes, the whale-ship Maine was
wrecked at the same place on the 23d of August, by which the gains of a two
years’ cruise were lost, together with the ship.

The disaster to this
second vessel was a severe blow to the colonists, who had always anticipated
great profits from making the Columbia Riv-er a rendezvous for the
whaling-fleet on the north-west coast. Some of the owners in the east had
recommended their sail­ing-masters to seek supplies in Oregon, out of a desire
to assist the colonists. But it was their ill-fortune to have the first whaler
attempting entrance broken up on the sands where two Tiiited States vessels,
the Peacock and Shark, had been lost.42 Ever since the wreck of the
Shark efforts had been made to inaug­urate a proper system of pilotage on the
bar, and one of the constant petitions to congress was for a steam-tug. In the
absence of this benefit the Oregon legislature in the winter of 1846 passed an
act estab­lishing pilotage on the bar of the Columbia, creating a board of
commissioners, of which the governor was one, with power to choose four others,
who should examine and appoint suitable persons as pilots.43

The first American
pilot was S. C. Reeves, who arrived in the brig Henry from Newbury port, in
March 1847, and was appointed in April,44 He went immediately to
Astoria to study the channel, and was believed to be competent.45
But the disaster of 1848

4! During
tlie winter nf 1845--6, 4 American whalers were ljing at Vancou­ver Island, the
ships Morrison of Mass., Louise of Conn., and 2 others. Six seamen deserted in
a whale-boat, but the Indians would not allow them to land, and being compelled
to put to sea a storm arose and 3 of them per­ished, Robert Church, Frederick
Smith, and Rice of New London. Aifei’ Beg., lxx. 341.

13 Or.
Spectator, Jan. 7, 1847; Or. Laws, 1843-9, 46.

,4The S. I
Friend of Feb. 1849 said that the first and third mates of the Hfc’ine had
determined to remain in Oregon as pilots.

“The Hudson’s Bay
Company had no pilots and no charts, and -wanted

THE COLUMBIA
ENTRANCE.

23

caused him to be
censured, and removed on the charge of conniving at the wreck of the Vancouver
for the sake of plunder; a puerile and ill-founded accusation, though his
services might well be dispensed with on the ground of incompetency.46

If the sands of the
bar shifted so much that there were six fathoms in the spring of 1847 where
there were but two and a half in 1846, as was stated by captains of vessels,471
see no reason for doubting that a sufficient change may have taken place in the
winter of 1847-8, to endanger a vessel depending upon the wind. But however
great the real dangers of the Co­lumbia bar, and perhaps because they were
great,48 the

none, though they had
lost 2 vessels, the William and Ann, in 1828, and tlie Isabella in 1830, in
entering the river. Their captains learned the north channel and used it; and
one of their mates, Latta, often acted as pilot to new arrivals. Parrish says,
that in 1840 Captain Butler of the Sandwich Inlands, who came on board the
Lausanne to take her over the Columbia Bar, had not been in the Columbia for 27
years. Or. Anecdotes, MS., <>, 7. After coming into Baker Bay the ship
was taken in charge by Bimie as far as Astoria, end from there to Vancouver by
a Chinook Indian called George or ‘King George, ’ who knew the river tolerably
well. A great deal of time was lost waiting for this chance pilotage. See
Townsend's Nar., 180.

16The. first account of the wreck in the
Spectator of May 18, 1848, fully exonerates the pilot; but subsequent published
statements in the same paper for July 27th, speak of the removal on charges
preferred against him and others, of secreting goods from the wreck. Reeves
went to California in the autumn in an open boat with two spars carried on the
sides as outriggers, as elsewhere mentioned. In Dec. he returned to Oregon in
charge of the Span­ish bark J6ven Ouipuzcoana, which was loaded with lumber,
flour, and pas­sengers, and sailed again for San Francisco in March. lie became
master of a small sloop, the Flora, which capsized in Suisun Bay, while
carrying a party to the mines, in May 1849, by v, hich he, a young man named
Loomis, from Oregon, and several others were drowned. Crawford's Nar., MS.,
101.

41 Howison
declared that the south channel was ‘almost closed up’ in 1846, yet in the
spring of 1847 Reeves took the brig Henry out through it, and con­tinued to use
it during the summer. Or. Spectator, Oct. 14, 1847; Hunts Meroh. Mag., xxiii.
358, OGO-1.

48Kelley and Slacum both advocated an
artificial moi1 th to the Columbia. 95th Cong., 3d Sens., H. Com.
Eept. 101, 41, 5G. Wilkes reported rather adversely than otherwise of its
safety. Howison charged that Wilkes’ charts were worthless, not because the
survey was not properly made, but because constant alterations were going on
which rendered frequent surveys neces­sary, and also the constant explorations
of resident pilots. Coast and Coun­try, MS., 8-9. About the time of the
agitation of the Oregon Question in the United States and England, ruuch was
said of the Columbia bar. A w riter in the Edinburgh Review, July 1845,
declared the Columbia ‘inaccessible for 8 months of the year.’ Twiss, in his
Or. Ques., 370, represented the entrance to the Columbia as dangerous. A writer
in Niles’ Iieg., lxx. 284, remarked that from all that had been said and
printed on the subject for several years the impression was given that the
month of the Columbia ‘was so dangerous to navigate as to be nearly
inaccessible.’ Findlay’s Directory, i. 357-71; S. 1.

colonists objected to
having them magnified by rumor rather than alleviated by the means usual in
such cases, and while they discharged Reeves, they used the Spectator freely to
correct unfavorable impressions abroad. There were others who had been employed
as branch pilots, and who still exercised their vocation, and certain captains
who became pilots for their own or the vessels of others:49 but
there was a time fol­lowing Reeves’ dismissal, when the shipping which soon
after formed a considerable Heet in the Colum­bia, ran risks enough to
vindicate the character of the harbor, even though as sometimes happened a
vessel was lost at the mouth of the river.

Friend,
Nov. 2,1846; Id., March 15, June 1,1847; Album Mexicana, i. 573 4; S. F.
Polynesian, iv. ] 10; S. F, Californian, Sept. 2,1848; Thornton'sOr. andCal.,
i. 305; Niles' Reg., lxix. 381 Senator Benton was the first to take up the
championship of the river, which he did in a speech delivered May 28, 1846. He
showed that while Wilkes’ narrative fostered a poor opinion of the entrance to
the Columbia, the chart accompanying the narrative showed it to be good; and
the questions he put in writing to James Blair, son of Francis P. Blair, one of
the midshipmen who surveyed it (the others were Reynolds and Knox), proved the
same. Further, he had consulted John Maginn, for 18 years pilot at New York,
and then president of the New York association of pilots, who had a bill on
pilotage before, congress, and had asked him to compare the entrance of New
York harbor with that of the Columbia, to which Maginn had distinctly returned
answer that the Columb:a had far the better
entrance in everything that constituted a good harbor. Cong. Globe., 1845-6,
915; Id., 921-2. When Vancouver surveyed the river in 1792 there existed but
one channel. In 1839 when Belcher surveyed it 2 channels existed, and Sand
Island was a mile and a half long, covering an area of 4 square miles, where in
Vancouver’s time there were 5 fathoms of water. In 1841 Wilkes found the soutli
channel closed with accretions from Clatsop Spit, and the middle sands had
changed their shape. In 1844, as we have seen, it was open, and in 1846 almost
closed again, but once more open in 1847. Subsequent gov­ernment surveys have
noted many changes. In 1850 the south channel was in a new place, and ran in a
different direction from the old one; in 1852 the new channel was fully cut
out, and the bar had moved three fourths of a mile eastward with a wider
entrance, and 3 feet more water. The north channel had contracted to half its
width at the bar, with its northern line on the line of 1850. The depth was
reduced, but there was still one fathom more of water than on the south bar;
and other changes had taken place. In 1859 the south channel was again closed,
and again in 1868 discovered to be open, with a fathom more water than in the
north channel, which held pretty nearly its former position. Fror.1 these
observations it is manifest that the north channel maintains itself with but
slight changes, while the south chan nel is subject to variations, and the
middle sands and Clatsop and Chinook spits are constantly shifting. Report of
Bvt. Major Gillespie, Engineer Corps, U. S. A., Dec. 18, 1S78, in Daily
Astorian.

49Captain N. Crosby is spoken of as taking
vessels in and out of the river. This gentleman became thoroughly identified
with the interests of Oregon, and especially of Portland, and of shipping, and
did much to establish a trade with China.

In the matter of
interior transportation there was not in 1848 much improvement over the Indian
canoe or the fur company’s barge and bateau. The maritime industries seem
rather to liavo been neglected in early times on the north-west coast
notwithstanding its natural features seemed to suggest the usefulness if not
the necessity of seamanship and nautical science. Since the building of the
little thirty-ton schooner Dolly at Astoria in 1811 for the Pacific Fur Com­pany,
few vessels of any description had been con­structed in Oregon. Kelley related
that he saw in 1834 a ship-yard at Vancouver where several vessels had been
built, and where ships were repaired/0 which is likely enough, but
they were small and clumsy affairs,61 and few probably ever went to
sea. Some barges and a sloop or two are mentioned by the earliest settlers as
on the rivers carrying wheat from Oregon City to Vancouver, which served also
to con­vey families of settlers down the Columbia.52 The Star of
Oregon built in the Willamette in 1841, was the second vessel belonging to
Americans constructed in these waters.

The first vessel constructed
by an individual owner, or for colonial trade, was a sloop of twenty-five tons,
built in 1845 by an Englishman named Cook, and called the Calapooya. I have
also mentioned that she proved of great service to the immigrants of that year
on the Columbia and Lower Willamette. The first keel- boats above the falls
were owned by Robert Newell, and built in the winter of 1845-6, to ply between
Ore­

50"Sth Cong., 3d Scss., II. Snp.
Rept. 101, 59.

slThe
schooner (not the bark) Vancouver was built at Vancouver in 1S29.

She was about 150
tons burden, and poorly constructed; and was lost on Rose

Spit at the north end
of the Queen Charlotte Island in 1834. Captain Dun­

can ran her aground
in open day. The crew got ashore on the mainland, and reached Fort fiimpson,
Nass River, in June. Roberts’ Recollections, MS., 43.

62Mack's
Or., MS., 2; Ebberts’ Trapper's Life,, MS., 44; Or. Spectator, April 10, 1S4G.
There is mention in the Spectator of June 25, 1846, of the launching at
Vancouver of The Prince of Walt*, a vessel of 70 feet keel, 18 feet beam, 14
feet below, with a tonnage register of 74. She toj constructed

by the company's
ship-builder, Scarth, and christened by Miss Douglas,

escorted by Captain
Baillie of the Modtste, amidst a large concourse of people.

gon City and
Champoeg, the Mogul and the Ben Franklin. From the fact that the fare was one
dollar in orders, and fifty cents in cash, may be seen the esti­mation in which
the paper currency of the time was held. Other similar craft soon followed,63
and were esteemed important additions to the comfort of trav­ellers, as well as
an aid to business. Other transpor­tation than that by water there was none,
except the slow-moving ox-wagon.54 Stephen H. L. Meek ad­vertised to
take freight or passengers from Oregon City to Tualatin plains by such a
conveyance, the wagon being a covered one, and the team consist­ing of eight
oaten.** Medorum Crawford transported goods or passengers around the falls at
Oregon City for a number of years with ox-teams.68

The men in the valley
from the constant habit of being so much on horseback became very good riders.
The Canadian young men and women were especially fine equestrians and sat their
lively and often vicious Cayuse horses as if part of the animal; and on Sun­day,
when in gala dress, they made a striking appear­ance, being handsome in form as
well as graceful riders.67 The Americans also adopted the custom of
‘loping’ practised by the horsemen of the Pacific coast, which gave the rider
so long and easy a swing, and carried him so fast over the ground. They also
became skilful in throwing the lasso and catching wild cat­tle. Indeed, so
profitable was cattle-raising, and so

6JOr.
Spectator, May28,1846. TheGreat Western vaninoppositiontoNewell’s boatsinMay;
and two other clinker-built boats were launched in the same month to run
between Oregon City and Portland. In June following I notice men­tion of the
Salt liiver Packet, Captain Gray, plying between Oregon and Astoria with
jiassengers. Id., June 11, 1840; Brown's Will. Valley, MS., 30; Bacon's Merc.
Life Or. City, MS., 12; Weed’s Queen Charlotte I. Exped., MS., 3.

51Brown, in his Willamette Valley, MS., 6,
says that before 184!) there was not a span of horses harnessed to a wagon in
the territory; and that the first set of harness he saw was brought from
California. On account of the roadless condition of the country at its first
settlement, horses were little used in harness, but it is certain that many
horse-teams eame across the plains whose harnesses may "having been hanging
unused, or made into gearing for riding-animala or for horses doing farm work

53Or. Spectator, Oct. 29, 1840.

’6
Crawford’s Missionaries, MS., 13-15.

Early
Days, MS., 31.

agreeable the free
life of the herdsman or owner of

o'

stock, who flitted
over the endless green meadows, clad in fringed buckskin, with Spanish spurs
jingling on his heels, and a crimson silk scarf tied about the waist,58
that to aspiring lads the life of a vaquero of­fered attractions superior to
those of soil-stirring.

He who would a wooing
go, if unable to return the same day, carried his blankets, and at night threw
himself upon the floor and slept till morning, when he might breakfast before
leave-taking.

If there were none of
the usual means of travel, neither were there mail facilities till 1848.
Letters were carried by private persons, who received pay or not according to
circumstances. The legislature of 1845 in December enacted a law establishing a
gen­eral post-otfice at Oregon City, with W. Gr. TVault59 as
postmaster-general, but the funds of the provisional government were too scanty
and the settlements too scattered to make it possible to carry out the inten­tion
of the act.00

S8 If we may
believe some of these same youths, no longer young, they werw not always so
gayly apparelled and mounted. Says one: ‘We rode with a raw hide saddle,
bridle, and lasso. The bit was Spanish, the stirrups wooden, the sinch
horse-hair, and over all these, rider and all, was a blanket with a hole in it
through which the head of the rider protruded.’ Quite a suitable costume
foriainy weather. McMinnville Reporter, Jan. 4, 1877.

\Y. G. T'Vault was
born in Arkansas, whence he removed to Illinois in 1843, and to Oregon in 1844.
lie was a lawyer, energetic and adventurous, foremost in many exploring
expeditions, and also a strong partisan with southem-democraey proclivities. He
possessed literary abilities and Lad something to do with early newspapers,
first with the Spectator, as president of the Oregon printing association, and
as its first editor; afterward as editor ot the Table Rock Sentinel, the first
newspaper in southern Oregon; and later of The fntellir/encer. lie was elected
to the legislature in 1846. After the establishment of the territory he was
again elected to the legislature, being speaker of the house in 1858. He was
twice prosecuting attorney of the 1st judicial district, comprising Jackson
County, to which he had xemoved after the discovery of gold in Rogue River
Valley, and held other public positions. When the mining excitement was at its
height in Idaho, he was practising his profession and editing the Index in
Silver City. Toward the close ot his life, he deteriorated through the
influence of his political associations, and lost casto among his
fellow-pioneers. He died of small-pox at Jacksonville in 18G9. Daily Salem
Unionist, Feb. I860; Deady's Scrap-hook, 122; Jacksonville, Or., Sentinel, Feb.
0, 18G9; Dallas Polk Co. Signal, Feb. 1G, 1869.

60By the post-office act, postage on letters
of a single sheet conveyed for a distance not exceeding 30 miles was fixed at
15 cents; over and not exceeding

Tlie first contract
let was to Hugh Bums in the spring of 184G, who was to carry the mail once to
Weston, in Missouri, for fifty cents a single sheet. After a six months trial
the postmaster-general had become assured that the office was not remunerative,
the expense of sending a semi-monthly mail to each county south of the Columbia
having been borne chiefly by private subscription; and advertised that the mail
to the different points would be discontinued, but that should any important
news arrive at Oregon City, it would be despatched to the several offices. The
post-office law, however, remained in force as far as practicable but no
regular mail service was in­augurated until the autumn of 1847, when the United
States department gave Oregon a deputy-postmaster in John M. Shively, and a
special agent in Cornelius Gilliam. The latter immediately advertised for pro­posals
for carrying the mail from Oregon City to Astoria and back, from the same to
Mary River61 and back, including intermediate offices, and from the
same to Fort Vancouver, Nisqually, and Admiralty Inlet. From this time the
history of the mail service belongs to another period.

The social and
educational affairs of the colony had by 1848 begun to assume shape, after the
fashion of older communities. The first issue of the Spectator contained a
notice for a meeting of masons to be held the 21st of February 1846, to adopt
measures for obtaining a charter for a lodge. The notice was issued by Joseph
Hull, P. G. Stewart, and William P. Dougherty. A charter was issued by the grand
lodge of Missouri on the 19th of October 1846, to Mult­nomah lodge, No. 84, in
Oregon City. This charter

per cent of all
moneys by him received ami paid out. The act 'was made con­formable to the
United States law's regulating the. post-office department, .so far as they
were applicable to the condition of Oregon. Or. Spectator, Feb, 5, 1846. See
T’Vault's, instructions to postinaoters, in Id., March 5, 1846.

fcl Marj
River signified to w litre Corvallis now stands. When that town was hrst laid
off it was called Marysville.

was brought across
the plains in an emigrant wagon in 1848, intrusted to the care of P. B.
Cornwall, who turning off to California placed it in charge of Orriu Kellogg,
who brought it safely to Oregon City and delivered it to Joseph Hull. Under
this authority Multnomah lodge was opened September 11, 1848, Joseph Hull, W.
M.; W. P. Dougherty, S. W., and T. C. Cason, J. W. J. C. Ainsworth was the
first worshipful master elected under this charter.62

A dispensation for
establishing an Odd Fellows lodge was also applied for in 1846, but not
obtained till 1852.63 The Multnomah circulating library was a
chartered institution, with branches in the different counties; and the members
of the Falls Association, a literary society which seems to have been a part of
the library scheme, contributed to the Spectator prose and verse of no mean
quality.

The small and
scattered population and the scarcity of school-books were serious drawbacks to
education. Continuous arrivals, and the printing of a large edition of
Webster's Elementary Spelling Booh by the Oregon printing association, removed
some of the obstacles to advancement04 in the common schools. Of
private schools and academies there were already several besides the Oregon
Institute and the Cath­olic schools. Of the latter there were St Joseph65
for

6j This was
on account of the miscarriage of the warrant, which was sent to Oregon in 1847
by way of Honolulu, but which did not reach there, the person to whom it was
sent, Gilbert Watson, dying at the Wands in 1848. A. V. Fraser, who was sent
out by the government in the following year to supervise the revenue service on
the Pacific coast, was then appointed a special commissioner to establish the
order in California and Oregon; but the gold discoveries gave him so much to do
that he did not get to Oregon, and it was not until 3 years afterward that
Chemeketa lodge No. 1 was established at Salem. The first lodge at Portland was
instituted in 1853. E. M. Bamum’s Early Hist. Odd Fellowship in Or., in Jour,
of Proceedings of OramI Lodje

65Named after Joseph La Roque of I’a^is who
furnished the funds for its erection. UeSmet’s Or. Miss., 41.

boys at St Paul on
French Prairie, and two schools for girls, one at Oregon City and one at St
Mary, taught by the sisters of Notre Dame. An academy known as Jefferson
Institute was located in La Creolo Valley near the residence of Nathaniel Ford,
who was one of the trustees. William Beagle and James Howard were the others,
and J. E. Lyle principal. On the Tualatin plains llev. Harvey Clark had opened
a school which in 1846 had attained to some prom­ise of success, and in 1847 a
board of trustees was established. Out of this germ developed two years later
the Tualatin Academy, incorporated in Septem­ber 1849, which developed into the
Pacific University in 1853-4.

The history of this
institution reflects credit upon its founders in more than an ordinary degree.
Ilar- vey Clark, it will be remembered, was one of the independent
missionaries, with no wealthy board at his back from whose funds he could
obtain a few hundred or thousand of dollars. When he failed to find missionary
work among the natives, he settled on the Tualatin plains upon a land-claim
where the academic town of Forest Grove now stands, and taught as early as 1842
a few children of the other settlers. In 1846 there came to Oregon, by the
southern route, enduring all the hardships of the be­lated immigration, a woman
sixty-eiglit years of age, with her children and grandchildren, Mrs Tabitha
Brown.66 Her kind heart was pained at the num­ber of orphans left to
charity by the sickness among

Tal.itha Moffat Brown
was boru in the town of Brinfield, Mass., May 1, 1780. Her father was Dr Joseph
Moffat. At the age of i'j she mar- Rev. Clark Brown of Stonington, Conn., of
the Episcopal church, hi the changes of his ministerial life Brown removed to
Maryland, where he died early, leaving his widow with 3 children surronnded by
an illiterate people. She opened a school and for 8 years continued to teach,
support­ing her children until the 2 boys were apprenticed to trades, and
assisting them to start in business. The family finally moved to Missouri. Here
her children prospered, but one of the sons. Orris Brown, visited Oregon in
1843, returning to Missouri in 1845 with Dr White and emigrating with his
mother and family in 1S46. His sister and brother-in-law, Virgil K. 1’iingle,
also accompanied him ; and it is from a letter of Mrs Pringle that this sketch
has been obtained.

BENEVOLENT
MEN AND WOMEN.33

the immigrants of
1847, with no promise of proper care or training. She spoke of the matter to Harvey
Clark who asked her what she would do. “ If I had the means I would establish
myself in a comfortable home, receive all poor children, and be a mother to
them,” said Mrs Brown. “ Are you in earnest?” asked Clark. “Yes.” “Then I will
try with you, and see what can be done.”

There was a log
meeting-house on Clark’s land, and in this building Mrs Brown was placed, and
the work of charity began, the settlers contributing such articles of
furnishing as they could spare. The plan was to receive any children to be
taught; those whose parents could afford it, to pay at the rate of five dollars
a week for board, care, and tuition, and those who had noth­ing, to come free.
In 1848 there were about forty children in the school, of whom the greater part
were boarders;6, Mrs Clark teaching and Mrs Brown having charge of
the family, which was healthy and happy, and devoted to its guardian. In a
short time Rev. Cushing Eells was employed as teacher.

I’here came to Oregon
about this time Rev. George H. Atkinson, under the auspices of the Home Mission­ary
Society of Boston.63 He had in view the estab-

67‘In 1851,’
writes Mrs Brown, ‘I had 40 in my family at §2.50 per week; and mixed with my
own hands 3,423 pounds of flour in less than 5 months.’ Yet she was a small
woman, had been lame many years, and was nearly 70 years of age. She died m
1S57. See Or. Aryus, May 17, 1856; Portland Went Shore, Dec., 1879.

63Atkinson
was bom in Newbury, Vermont. He was related to Josiah Little of Massachusetts.
One of his aunts, bom in 17G0, Mrs Anne Harris, lived to within 4 months of the
age of 100 years, and remembered well the feeling caused in Newbury port one
Sunday morning by the tidings of the death of the great preacher Whitefield;
and also the events of the French empire and American revolution. Mr Atkinson
left Boston, with his wife, in October 1847, on board the bark Scimoset,
Captain Hollis, and reached the Hawaiian Islands in the following February, v,
hence he sailed again for the Columbia in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s bark C'ouiitz,
Captain Weying- ton, May 23d, arriving at Vancouver on the 20th of June 1848.
He at once entered upon the duties of his profession, organized the Oregon
association of Congregational ministers, also the Oregon tract society, and
joined in the effort to found a school at. Forest Grove. He corresponded for a
time with tne Home Missionary, a Boston publication, from which I have gathered
some fragments of the history of Oregon from 1848 to 1851, during the heightof
the gold excitement. Mr Atkinson became pastor of the Congregational chnrch in
Oregon City in 1853; and wasfor many years the pastorof therirst Congregational
Hisi. Ob., Vol. II. 3

lishment of a college
under the patronage of the Con­gregational church and finding his brethren in
Oregon about to erect a new building for the school at Tua­latin plains, and to
organize a board of trustees, an arrangement was entered into by which the
orphan school wras placed in the hands of the trustees as the
foundation of the proposed college, which at first aspired only to be called
the Tualatin academy.

Clark gave two
hundred acres of his land-claim for a college and town-site, and Mrs Brown gave
a lot belonging to her, and five hundred dollars earned by herself.
Subsequently she presented a bell to the Congregational church erected on the
towu-site; and immediately before her death gave her own house and lot to the
Pacific University. She was indeed earnest and honest in her devotion to
Christian charity; may her name ever be held in holy remembrance.

Mr Clark also sold
one hundred and fifty acres of his remaining land for the benefit of the
institution of which he and Mrs Brown were the founders. It is said of Clark, “
he lived in poverty that he might do good to others.” He died March 24, 1858,
at Forest Grove, being still in the prime of life.69 What was so
well begun before 1848 continued to grow with the development of the country,
and under the fostering care of new friends as well as old, became one of the
leading independent educational institu­tions of the north-west coast.70

church in Portland.
Hi* health failing about 1866, he gave way to younger men; but he continued to
labor as a missionary of religion and temperance in newer fields as his
strength permitted. Nor did he neglect other fields of labor in the interest of
Oregon, contributing many valuable articles on the general features and
resources of the country . Added to all was an unspotted repu­tation, the
memory of which will be ever cherished by his descendants, 2 sons and a
daughter, the latter married to Frank Warren jun. of Portland.

70The first board of trustees was composed
of Rev. Harvey Clark, Hiram Cla^k, Rev. Lewis Thompson, Vv. H. Gray, Alvin T.
Smith, James M. Moore, Osborne Russell, nd G. H. Atkinson. The land given by
Clark was laid out in blocks and lots, except 20 acres reserved for a campus,
the half of which was donated by Re\. E. AValker. A building was erected during
the reign of high prices, in 1850-1, which cost, unfinished, 87,000; §5,000 of
which

THE PACIFIC
UNIVERSITY.

33

A private school for
young ladies was kept at Ore­gon City by Mrs X. M. Thornton, wife of Judge
Thornton. It opened February 1, 1847. The pupils were taught “ all the branches
usually comprised in a thorough English education, together with plain and
fancy needle-work, drawing, and painting in mezzotints and water-colors.”71
Mrs Thornton’s school was patro­nized by Janies Douglas and other persons of
distinc­tion in the country. The first effort made at estab­lishing a
common-school board was early >n 1847 in

came from tie sale of
lota, and by contributions. In 1852 Mr Atkinson went east to solicit aid from
the college society, which had promised to endow to some extent a college in
Oregon. The Pacific University was placed the ninth on their list, with an
annual sum granted of §300 to support a permanent pro­fessor. From other
sources he received §S00 in money, and §700 in books for a library. Looking
about for a professor, a young theological student, S. H. Harsh, son of Rev. Dr
Marsh of Burlington College, was secured as principal, and with him, and the
funds and books, Mr Atkinson returned in 1853. In the mean time J. M. Keeler,
fresh from Union college, Schenectady, Xew York, had taken charge of the
academy as principal, and had formed a pre­paratory class before the arrival of
Marsh. The people began to take a lively interest in the university, and in
1854 subscribed in lands and money $0, 500, and partially pledged $3,500 more.
On the 13th of April 1854 Marsh was chosen president, but was not formally
inaugurated until August 21, 1855. This year Keeler went to Portland, and E.
1). Sliattuck took his place as principal of the academy which also embraced a
class of young ladies. The institution struggled on, but in 1856-7 some of its
most advanced students left it to go to the better endowed eastern colleges.
This led the trustees and president to make a special effort, and Marsh went to
Hew York to secure further aid, leaving the university department in the charge
of Rev. II. Ly­man, professor of mathematics, who associated with him Rev. C.
Eells. Tlio help received from the college society and others in the east,
enabled the uni­versity to improve the general regime of the university. The
first graduate was Harvey W. Scott, who in 1863 took liis final degree. In 1SGG
there were

4graduates. In Jane 1807 the president
having again visited the east for further aid, over §25,000 was subscribed and
2 additional professors sccured: G. H. Collier, professor of natural sciences,
and J. W. Marsh, professor of languages. In May 1808 there were £44,303.60
invested funds, and a library of 5,000 volumes. A third visit to the east in
1SG9 secured over $20,000 for a presidential endowment fund. The university had
in 1876, in funds and other property, $85,000 for its support. The buildings
are however cf a poor character for college purposes, being built of wood, and
not well constructed, and $100,000 would be required to put the university in
good condition. President Marsh died in 1S79, and was succeeded by J. 11.
Herrick. Though founded by Congregationalists, the Pacifio University was not
controlled by them in a sectarian spirit; and its professors were allowed full
liberty in their teaching. Forest Grove, the seat oi this institution, is a
pretty village nestled among groves of oaks and firs near the Coast Range
foot-hills. Centennial Year Hist. Pacific University, in Portland Oregonian,
Feb. 12, 1S7G; Victor's Or. and Wash., 189-90; Or. Argus, Sept. 1, 1855;
Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 54.

71Mrs Thornton wrote to the S. I. Friend
that she was very comfortably settled in a log-house, walked a mile to her school
every morning, and was never more contented in her life.

Tualatin County, Rev.
.T. S. Griffin secretary;72 but no legislative action was taken
until a later period. Besides the spelling-book printed in 1847, Henry H.
Evarts printed an almanac calculated for Oregon and the Sandwich Islands.73
It was printed at the Spec­tator office by W. P. Hudson.

Professional men were
stid comparatively rare, preachers of different denominations outnumbering the
other professions.74 In every neighborhood there was preaching on
Sundays, the services being held in the most commodious dwellings, or in a
school-house if there was one. There were as yet few churches. Oregon City,
being the metropolis, had three, Catholic, Methodist, and Congregationalist.75
There was a Methodist church at Hillsboro, and another at Salem, and the
Catholic Church at St Paul’s, which com­pleted the list in 1848.

The general condition
of society in the colony was, aside from the financial and Indian troubles
which I have fully explained, one of general contentment. Both Burnett and
Minto declare in their accounts of those times that notwithstanding the
hardships all

” Or. Spectator, Feb.
IS, 1847.

«.?. I. Friend, Feb.
1848; Thornton’s Hist. Or., MS., 27.

7JI find in
the S, I. Friend, Sept, 1847, the following computation: Inhabi­tants (white),
7,000. This, according to immigration statistics, was too small an estimate.
About 400 were Catholics. Methodist* were most numerous. There were 6
itinerating Methodist Episcopal preachers, and 8 or 10 local preachers, besides
2 Protestant Methodist clergymen. Baptist missionaries, 2; Congregational or
Presbyterian clergymen, 4; and several of tlie Christian denomination known as
Campbellites; regular physicians, 4; educated lawyers, 4; quacks in both profession-s
more numerous. 1 have already mentioned the accidental death of I)r Long by
drowning in the Willamette at Oregon City, lie being at the time territorial
secretary . He was succeeded in practice and in office by Dr Frederick Prigg,
elected by the legislature in December 1846. He also died an accidental death
by falling from the rocky bluff into the river, in October 1S49. He was said to
be a man if fine abilities and education, but intemperate in his habits. Or.
Spectator, Nov. 2, 1849; Johnson’s Cal. and Or., 274.

73Deady’s
Hist. Or., MS., 71. Harvey Clark first organized the Congre­gational church at
Oregon City in 1844. Atkinson’s Address, 3; Oregon City Enterprise, March 24,
1876. In 1848 Rev. Horace Lyman, with his wife, left Boston to join Atkinson in
Oregon. He did not arrive until late in 1849. He founded the first
Congregational church in Portland, but subsequently became a professor at the
Pacific University. Home, Mmmiary, xxii. 43-4; Or. Spec­tator, Nov. 1, 1849.

QUALITY OF THE
POPULATION.

37

endured, there were
few wlio did not rejoice sincerely that they had cast their lot in Oregon.’16
Hospitality and good-fellowship prevailed; the people were tem­perate77
and orderly; and crime was still rare.7'

Amusements were few
and simple, and hardly nec­essary in so free and unconventional a community,
except as a means of bringing the people together.

17The missionaries, the women of Oregon
city, and friends of temperance generally, were still laboring to effect
prohibition of the traffic in spirituous liquors. The legislature of 1847
passed an amendment to the organic law, enacting that the word ‘prohibit’ should
be inserted in the place of ‘regulate’ in the Gth section, which read that the
legislature should have power to ‘regulate the introduction, manufacture, and
sale of ardent spirits.’ Or. Laws, 1843-9, 44. No cnange could be made in the
organic law without submitting it to the vote of the people at the ensuing
election, which being done, a majority were for prohibition, (f rover’s Or.
Archives, 273—4. When the matter again came before the colonial legislature at
its last session, that part of the governor’s message referring to prohibition
was laid on the table, on motion of Jesse Applegate. A bill to amend the
organic laws, as above provided, was subsequently introduced by Samuel It.
Thurston, but was rejected by vote, on motion of Applegate. Id., 293. Applegate’s
independent spirit revolted at prohibition, besides which he took a personal
gratification Irom securing the rejection of a measure emanating from a
missionary source. Surely all good people would be naturally averse to hearing
an uncultivated savage who was full of bad whiskey, singing in Chinook:

‘ N ah! six, potlach
blue lu (blue ruin),

Nika ticka, blue lu,

Hiyu blue lu,

Ilyas olo,

Potlach blue lu.1

Which freely
translated would run:

‘ Halli ■! friend,
frive me some whiskey;

Ivant whiskey, plenty of whiskey;

Very thirsty; give mo
some whiskey.1

Moss’
Pioneer Times, MS., 5G-7.

,s In the
Spectator of July 9, 1846, there is mention of an encounter with knives between
Kd. Robinson and John Watson. Robinson was arrested and brought before Justice
Andrew Ilood, and bound over in the suui of $200. In the same paper of July 23d
is an item concerning the arrest of Duncan McLean on suspicion of having
murdered a Mr Owens. An affray occurred at Salem in August 1847 between John H.
Bosworrh and Ezekiel Popham, in which the latter was killed, or suddenly
dropped dead from a disease of the heart. Id., Sept. 2, 1847. In 184S a man
named Leonard who had pawned his rille to one Arim, on Sauv^ Island, went to
recover without redeeming it, when Arim pursued him with hostile intent.
Leonard ran until he came to a fallen tree too large for him to scale in haste,
and finding Arim close upon him he turned, and in his excitement fired, killing
Arim. Leonard was arrested and discharged, there being no witnesses to the
affair. Arim was a bully, and Leonard a- small and usually quiet man, who
declared he had no intention of killing Arim, but fired accidentally, not
knowing the rifle was loaded. Leonard left the country soon after for the
gold-mines and never returned. Crav ford's Nar., MS., 107. I cite these
examples rather to show the absence than the presence of crime.

Besides
eliurcli-going, attending singing-scliool,79 and visiting among the
neighbors there were few assem­blages. There was occasionally a ball, which was
not regarded by the leading Protestant citizens as the most unquestionable mode
of cultivating social rela­tions. The Canadian families loved dancing, and
balls were not the more respectable for that reason;80 but the
dancers cared little for the absence of the elite. Taking them all in all, says
Burnett, " I never saw so fine a population;” and other writers claimed
that though lacking in polish the Oregon people were at this period morally and
socially the equal of those of any frontier state.81 Prom the peculiar
conditions of an isolated colony like that of Oregon, early mar­riages became
the rule. Young men required homes, and young women were probably glad to
escape from the overfilled hive of the parental roof to a domicile of their
own. However that may have been, girls were married at any age from fourteen
upward, and in some instances earlier;82 while no widow, whether

79.Tames Morris, in Camp Fire Orations,
MS., 20, says that the first sing- iug-sehool in the country was taught by a Mr
Johnson, and that he went to it dressed in a suit of buckskin dyed black, which
looked well, and did not stretch out over the knees like the uncolored skin.

80Mots' Pioneer Times, MS., 32. In
Minto’s Early Days, MS., and Mrs Minto’s Female. Pioneering, MS., there are
many pictures of the social condi­tion of the colony. The same in Camp Fire
Orations, MS., a report by my stenographer, of short speeches made at an
evening session of the pioneers at their annual meeting in 1878. All the
speakers except Mrs Minto declared they had enjoyed emigrating and pioneering.
She thought both very hard on females; though throughout all she conducted
herself as one of the noblest among women.

fI Home
Missionary, xx. 213-14.

P2 As a
guide to descent in the pioneer families I here affix a list of the marriages
published iu the Spectator from the beginning of 1S46 to the close of 1848.
Though these could not have been all, it may be presumed that people of social
standing would desire to publish this momentous event: 1840—Feb. 25, Samuel Campbell
to Miss Chellessa Chrisman; March 29, Henry Sewell to Miss Mary Ann Jones
Gerish; April 2, Stephen Staats to Miss Cordelia Forrest; April 12, Silas
Haight to Mrs Rebecca Ann Spalding; May 4, Pierre Bounin to Miss Louise
Rondeau; May 10, Isaac Staats to Miss Orlena Maria Williams; May 10, Henry
Marlin to Miss Emily Hipes; June 4, David Hill to Mrs Lucinda Wilson; June 14,
J. W. Nesmith to Miss Caro­line Goff; June 17, Alanson Hinman to Miss Martha
Elizabeth Jones Gerish; June 28, Robert Newell to Miss Rebecca Newman; July 2,
Mitchel Whit­lock to Miss Malvina Engle; July 4, William C. Dement to Miss
Olhia Johnson; .T. B. Jackson to Miss Sarah Parker; July 25, John G. Campbell
to Mis* Rothilda E. Buck; July 26, Joseph Watt to Miss Sarah Craft; Aug.

young or middle-aged,
long remained unmarried. This mutual dependence of the sexes was favorable to
the morals and the growth of the colony; and rich and poor alike had their
houses well tilled with children.

But what of the
diseases which made such havoc during the early missionary occupation?
Strangely enough they had disappeared as the natives died or were removed to a
distance from the white race. Not­withstanding the crowded state of the
settlers every winter after the arrival of another immigration, and notwithstanding
insufficient food and clothing in many instances, there was little sickness and
few deaths. Dr White, after six years of practice, pronounced the country to be
the healthiest and the climate one of the most salubrious in the world.83
As to the tem­perature, it seems to have varied with the different seasons and
years. Daniel Lee tells of plucking a strawberry-blossom on Cliristmas-day
1840, and the

weather continued
warm throughout the winter; but on the 12th of December 1842 the Columbia was
frozen over, and the ice remained in the river at the Dalles till the middle of
March, and the mercury was 6" below zero in that month, wh’le in the Willamette
Valley the cold was severe. On the other hand, in the winter of 1843 there was
a heavy rainfall, and a disastrous freshet in the Willamette in February. The
two succeeding winters were mild and rainy,84 fruit form­ing on the
trees in April; and again in the latter part of the winter of 1846-7 the
Columbia was frozen over at Vancouver so that the officers of the Modeste
played a curling match on the ice. The winter of 1848-9 was also cold, with ice
in the Columbia. The prevailing temperature was mild, however, when taken year
by year, and the soil being generally warm, the vegetables and fruits raised by
the first settlers sur­prised them by their size and quality.85 If
any fault was to be found with the climate it was on the score of too many
rainy or cloudy days; but when by com­parison with the drier climate of
California it was found to ;nsure greater regularity of crops the
farm­ing community at least were satisfied.86 The cattle- raisers
had most reason to dread the peculiarities of the Oregon climate, which by its
general mildness tlattered them into neglecting to provide winter food for
their stock, and when an occasional season of snow and ice came upon them they
died by hundreds; but this was partly the fault of the improvident owner.

The face of nature
here was beautiful; pure air from the ocean and the mountains; loveliness in
the

111 (Hyman's
2\ote Book, MS., 82-98; Palmer’s Journal, 119.

A potato is spoken of
which weighed 3j- lbs., and another lbs.; -while turnips sometimes weighed from
10 to 30 lbs. Blanchet raised one of 172 lba.

86 The term
‘web-foot’ had not yet been applied to the Oregonians. It became current in
mining times, anil is said to have originated in a sarcastic remark of a
commercial traveller, who had spent the night in a farm-house on the marshy
banks of the Long Tom, in what is now Lane County, that children should be
provided with webbed feet in that country. ‘We have thought of that,’ returned
the mistress of the house, at the same time dis­playing to the astonished visitor
her baby’n feet with webs between the toes. The story lost nothing in the
telling, and Web-foot became the pseudonjme for Oregonian.

THE
COMMONWEALTH ESTABLISHED.41

valleys dignified by
grandeur in the purple ranges which bordered them, overtopped here and there by
snowy peaks whose nearly extinct craters occasionally threw out a puff of smoke
or ashy flame,87 to remind the beholder of the igneous building of
the dark cliffs overhanging the great river. The whole country was remarkably
free from poisonous reptiles and insects. Of all the serpent class the
rattlesnake alone was armed with deadly fangs, and these were seldom seen
except in certain localities in the western portion of Oregon. Even the
house-fly was imported,88 coming like many plants, and like the bee,
in the beaten trail of white men.

Such was the country
rescued from savagism by this virtuous and intelligent people; and such their
general condition with regard to improvement, trade, education, morals,
contentment, and health, at the period when, after having achieved so much
without aid from congress, that body took the colony under its wing and assumed
direction of its affairs.

81Mount St Helen and Mount Baker were in a
state of eruption in March 1850, according to the Spectator of the 21st of that
month. The same paper of Oct. 18, 1840, records a startling explosion in the
region of Mount Hood, when the waters of Silver Creek stopped running for 24
hours, and also the destruction of all the fish in the stream by poisonous
gases.

hs McClane
says that when he came to Oregon there wax not a fly of any kind, but fleas
were plenty. First Wagon Train, MS., 14. W. H. Hector has said the same. Lewis
and Clarke, and 1’arker, expiate upon the fleas about the Indian camps..

CHAPTER II.

EFFECT OF THE
CALIFORNIA GOLD DISCOVERY.

1848-1849.

The
Magic Tower of Gold—A New Oregon—Arrival of Newell— Sharp Traffic—The Discovert
Announced—The Stampede South­ward—Overland Companies — Lassen’s Immigrants —
Hancock’s Manuscript--Character of the Oregonians in California—Tiieir General
Success—Revolutions in Trade and Society—Arrival of Vessels—Increase in the
Trices of Troducts—Change of Cur­rency—Tub Question of a Mint—Private
Coinage—Influx of Foreign Silver—Effect on Society—Legislation—Immigration.

And now
begins Oregon’s age of gold, quite a dif­ferent affair from Oregon’s golden
age, which we must look for at a later epoch. The Oregon to which Lane was
introduced as governor was not the same from which his companion Meek had
hurried in pov­erty and alarm one year before. Let us note the change, and the
cause, before recording the progress of the new government.

On the 31st of July
1848, the little schooner Hono­lulu, Captain Newell, from San Francisco,
arrived in the Columbia, and began to load not only with pro­visions, but with
shovels, picks, and pans, all that could be bought in the limited market. This
created no surprise, as it was known that Americans were emigrating to
California who would be in want of these things, and the captain of the schooner
was looked upon as a sharp trader who knew how to turn an honest penny. When he
had obtained everything to his purpose, he revealed the discovery made by
Marshall in California, and told the story how Ore-

(42)

gon men bad opened to
the world what appeared an inexhaustible store of golden treasure.1

The news was
confirmed by the arrival August 9tli of the brig Henry from San Francisco, and
on the 23d of the fur company’s brig Mary Dare from the Hawaiian Islands, by
the way of Victoria, with Chief Factor Douglas on board, who was not inclined
to believe the reports. But in a few days more the tidings had travelled
overland by letter, ex-Governor Boggs having written to some of liis former
Missouri friends in Oregon by certain men coming with horses to the Willamette
Valley for provisions, that much gold was found on the American lliver. No one
doubted longer; covetous desire quickly increased to a delirium of hope. The
late Indian disturbances were forgotten; and from the ripening harvests the
reap­ers without compunctions turned away. Even their beloved land-claims were
deserted; if a man did not go to California it was because he could not leave
his family or business. Some prudent persons at first, seeing that provisions
and lumber must greatly in­crease in price, concluded to stay at home and reap
the advantage without incurring the risk; but these were a small proportion of
the able-bodied men of the colony. Far more went to the gold mines than had
volunteered to fight the Cayuses;2 farmers, mechanics, professional
men, printers—every class. Tools were dropped and work left unfinished in the
shops. The farms were abandoned to women and boys. The two newspapers, the
Oregon Spectator and Free Press, held

1J. W.
Marshall was an immigrant to Oregon of 1844. He went to Cali­fornia in 1840,
and was employed by Sutter. In 1847 lie was followed by Charles Bennett and
Stephen Staats, all of whom were at Sutter’s mill when the discovery of gold
was made. Brown’s Will. Vol., MS., 7 s Parsons’ Life, of Marshall, 8-9.

2Burnett says that at least two thirds of
the population capable of bear­ing arms left tor California in the summer and
autumn of 1848. Recollections, MS., i. 325. ‘About two thousand persons,’ says
the California Star ami Californian, Dec. 9, 184S. (July five old men were left
at Salem. Brown’s WiM Val, MS., 9. Anderson, in his Northwest Coast, MS., 37,
speaks of the great exodus. Compare Graicf rd’s Nar., MS., 106, and Victor’s
River of the West, 483-5. liames, Or. and Cal., MS., 8, says he found at Oregon
City only a few women and children and some Indians.

out, the one till
December, the other until the spring of 1849, when they were left without
compositors and suspended.3 ISTo one thought of the
outcome. It was not then known in Oregon that a treaty had been signed by the
United States and Mexico, but it was believed that such would be the result of
the war; hence the gold-fields of California were already regarded as the
property of Americans. Men of family expected to return; single men thought little
about it. To go, and at once, was the chief idea.4 Many who had not
the means were fitted out by others who took a share in the venture; and quite
dif­ferent from those who took like risks at the east, the trusts imposed in
the men of Oregon were as a rule faithfully carried out.5

Pack-trains were
first employed by the Oregon gold- seekers; then in September a wagon company
was organized. A hundred and fifty robust, sober, and energetic men were soon
ready for the enterprise. The train consisted of fifty wagons loaded with
mining implements and provisions for the winter. Even planks for constructing
gold-rockers were carried in the bottom of some of the wagons. The teams were
strong oxen; the riding horses of the hardy native Cayuse stock, late worth but
ten dollars, now bringing thirty, and the men were armed. Barnett was elected
captain and Thomas McKay pilot.8 They went to Klamath Lake by the
Applegate route, and then turned south-east intending to get into the
California emigrant road before it crossed the Sierra. After travelling several
days over an elevated region, not well watered nor furnishing good grass, to
their surprise

3The Spectator from February to October.
I do not think the Free Pre/m was revived after its stoppage, though it ran
long enough to print line’s proclamation. The Oregon American had expired in
the autumn of 1848.

5There was the usual doggerel perpetrated
here as elsewhere at the time. See Brown’s Or. Miscel., MS., 47.

6Rvss’ Nar., MS., 11; Lovejoy’t Portland,
MS., 2G: Johnson's Cal. and

Or.,
1S5-6.

they came into a
newly opened wag-on-road, which proved to be that which Peter Lassen of
California had that season persuaded a small party immigrating into the
Sacramento Valley to take, through a pass which would bring them near his
rancho.7

The exodus thus begun
continued as long as weather permitted, and until several thousand had left
Oregon by land and sea. The second wagon com­pany of twenty ox-teams and
twenty-five men was from Puget Sound, and but a few days behind the first,8
while the old fur-hunters’ trail west of the

7After proceeding some distance on
Lassen's trail they found that others who had preceded them were as ignorant as
they of w hat lay before them; and after travelling westward for eight miles
they came to a sheer wall of rock, constituting a mountain ridge, instead of to
a view of the Sacramento Valley. On examination of the giound it was found that
Lassen and his com­pany had been deceived as well as they, and had marched back
to within half a mile of the entrance to the valley before finding a way out of
it. After exploring for some distance in advance the wagons were allowed to
come on, and the summit of the sierra was reached the 20th of October. After
passing this and entering the pine forest on the wrestem slope, they
overtook Lassen and a portion of his party, unable to proceed. He had at first
but ten wagons in his company, and knewnothing more about the route than from a
generally correct idea of the country he could conjecture. They proceeded
without mishap until coming to the thick timber on the mountains; and not
having force enough to open the road, they were compelled to convert their wagons
into carts in order to make the short turns necessary in driving around fallen
timber. Progress in tliis manner was slow. Half of the immigrants, now fear­fully
incensed against their leader, had abandoned their carts, and packing their
goods on their starving oxen, deserted the other half, without knowing how they
were to reach the settlements. When those behind were overtaken by the
Oregonians they were in a miserable condition, not having had bread for a
month. Their w ants were supplied, and they were assured that the road should
be opened for them, which was done. Sixty or eighty men went to the front w ith
axes, and the way was cleared for the wagons. When the for­est was passed,
there were yet other difficulties which Lassen’s small and exhausted company
could never have removed. A tragedy like that of I)on- ner Lake was averted by
these gold-seekers, wlio arrived in the Sacramento Valley about the 1st of
November. Burnett's Recollections, MS., i. 32S-3G6; Lovejoy's Portland, MS.,
27; Barnes’ Or. and Cal., MS., 11-12; Palmer’s Wagon Trains, MS., 43.

8Hancock's Thirteen, Years’ Residence on
the, Northwest Coast, a thick manuscript volume containing an account of the
immgratiun of 1S45, the settlement of the Puget Sound country by Americans, the
journey to California of the golil-hunters, and a long list of personal
adventures with Indians, and other matter of an interesting nature, is cne of
my authorities ot. this period. The manuscript was written at the dictation of
Samuel Han­cock, of Whidbey Island, by Major Sewell. See Morse's Kotes of the
History atxl Resources of Washington Ter., ii. 19-30. It would seem from
Hancock’s MS. that the Puget Sound Company, like the Willamette people,
overtook and assisted a party of immigrants who had been forsaken by that pilot
in the Sierra Nevada, and brought them through to the Sacramento Valley.

sierra swarmed with
pack-trains9 all the autumn. Their first resort was Yuba River; but
in the spring ol‘ 1849 the forks of the American became their prin­cipal field
of operations, the town of Placerville, first called Hangtown, being founded by
them. They were not confined to any localities, however, and made many
discoveries, being for the tirst winter only more numerous in certain places
than other miners; and as they were accustomed to camp-life, Indian-fighting,
and self-defence generally, they obtained the reputa­tion of being clannish and
aggressive. If one of them was killed or robbed, the others felt bound to
avenge the injury, and the rifle or the rope soon settled the account. Looking
upon them as interlopers, the Californians naturally resented these decided
meas­ures. Cut as the Oregonians were honest, sober, and industrious, and could
be accused of nothing worse than being ill-dressed and unkempt and of knowing
how to protect themselves, the Californians mani­fested their prejudice by
applying to them the title ‘Lop-ears,’ which led to the retaliatory appellation
of ‘Tar-heads,’ which elegant terms long remained in use.10

It was a huge joke,
gold-mining and all, including even life and death. But as to rivalries they
signi­fied nothing. Most of the Oregon and Washington adventurers who did not
lose their life were success­ful; opportunity was assuredly greater then in the

This may have been
the other division of Lassen’s company, though Hancock says there were 25
wagons, which does not agree with Burnett.

1One of the first companies with
pack-animals w as under John E. Ross, an immigrant of 1847, and a lieutenant in
the Cayuse war, of whom I shall liave more to say hereafter. Buss states that
Levi Scott had already settled in the Umpqaa ^ alley, and was then the only
American south of the Cala- pooya Mountains. From Scott’a to the tirst house in
California, Reading’s, was 14 days’ travel. See Ross’ Nar., MS., passim.

l0Iloss’
Nar., MS., 15; Crawford's Nar., MS., 191, 204. The American pioneers of
California, looking for the origin of the word Oregon in a Spanish phrase
bignilying long-ears, as I have explained in vol. i. //ist. Or., hit upon this
delectable sobriquet for the settlers of that country. With equal justice,
admitting this theory to be correct, which it is not, the Oregonians called
them tar-htads, because the northern California Indians were observed to cover
their heads w ith tar as a sign of mourning.

Sierra Foothills than
in the Valley Willamette. Still they were not hard to satisfy; and they began
to re­turn early in the spring of 1849, when every vessel that entered the
Columbia was crowded with homo- lovin<»- Oregonians.11 A few went
into business in California. The success of those that returned stimu­lated
others to go who at first had not been able.12

12P. W. Crawford gives the following account
of his efforts to raise tL6 means to go to California: He was an immigrant of
1847, and had not yet acquired property that could be converted into money.
Being a surveyor he spent most of his time in laying out town sites and claims,
for which he re­ceived lots in payment, and in some cases wheat, and often
nothing. Ha had a claim on the Cowlitz which he managed to get planted in
potatoes. Owning a little skiff called the E. Went, he traded i t to Geer for a
hundred seedling apple-trees, but not being able to return to his claim, he
planted them on the land of Wilson Blain, opposite Oregon City. Having
considerable wheat at MeLoughlin’s mill he had a portion of it ground, and sold
the flour for cash. He gave some -wheat to newly arrived emigrants, and traded
the rest for a fat ox, which he sold to a butcher at Oregon City for
twenty-five dollars cash. Winter coming on he assisted his friend P^eed in the
pioneer bakery of Portland. In February he traded a Durham bull which he pur­chased
ot an Indian at Fort Laramie and drove to Oregon, for a good s-ailing boat,
with which he took a load of hoop-poles down the Columbia to Hunt’s mill, where
salmou barrels were made, and brought back some passengers, and a few goods for
Capt. Crosbv, having a rough hard time working his way through the floating
ice. On getting back to Portland, Crawford ami Will­iams, the former mate of
the b'tarlimj, engaged of the supercargo Gray, sixty dollars each, steerage
passage on the Undine then lying ?t Hunt’s mill. The next thing was to get
supplies and tools, such as were needed to go to the mines. For these it was
necessary to make a visit to Vancouver, which could not be done in a boat, as
the river was still full of ice, above the mouth of the Williamette. He
succeeded in crossing the Columbia opposite the head of Sauv6 Island, and
walked from the landing to Vancouver, a distance ot about six miles. This
business accomplished, he rejoined his companion in the boat, and set out for
Hunt’s mill, still endangered by floating ice, but

There was a complete
revolution in trade, as re­markable as it was unlooked for two years before,
when the farmers were trying to form a cooperative ship-building association to
carry the products of their farms to a market where cash could be obtained for
wheat. No need longer to complain of the absence of vessels, or the terrible
bar of the Columbia. I have mentioned in the preceding chapter that the Henry
and the Toulon were the only two American vessels trading regularly to the
Columbia River in the spring of 1848. Hitherto only an occasional vessel from
Cal­ifornia had entered the river for lumber and flour; but now they came in
fleets, taking besides these ar­ticles vegetables, butter, eggs, and other
products needed by the thousands arriving at the mines, the traffic at first
yielding enormous profits. Instead of from three to eight arrivals and
departures in a year, there were more than fifty in 1849, of which twenty were
in the river in October awaiting car­goes at one time.13 They were
from sixty to six or or seven hundred tons burden, and three of them were built
in Oregon.11 Whether it was due to their

amving in time to
take passage. Such were the common incidents 01 life in Oregon before the gold
products of the ('alifomia mines came into circulation. Narrative, MS.,
179—1ST.

general light draft,
or to an increased knowledge of the channels of the mouth of the river, few
accidents occurred, and only one American vessel was wrecked at or near the
entrance this year;15 though two French ships were lost during the
summer, one on the bar in attempting to enter by the south channel, then
changed in its direction from the shifting of the

oo

sands, and the other,
by carelessness, in the river between Astoria and Tongue Point.16

That all this sudden
influx of shipping, where so little had ventured before, meant prosperity to
Oregon tradesmen is unquestionable. Portland, which Petty - grove had turned
his back upon with seventy-five thousand dollars, was now a thriving port,
whose

Kelly, was of
planking put on diagonally in several thicknesses, 'with a few- temporary sawed
timbers aid natural crooks, and mis sold in San Francisco for §4,000. The
General Lane was built at Oregon City by John McClellan, aided by MeLoughlin,
and ran to San Francisco. Her captain -was Gil­man, afterward a bar pilot at
Astoria. She went directly to Sacramcnto with a cargo of lumber and faun
products. The Pioneer was put together by a company at Astoria. Honolulu Frieml,
Sept. 1, 1849.

15The brig Josephine was becalmed,
whereupon her anchor was let down; but a gale blowing up in the night she was
driven on the sand and dashed to pieces ir the breakers. She was loaded with
lumber from the Oregon City Mills, which was a total loss to the Island Milling
Company. Or. Spectator, Jan. 10, 1850.

16This latter wreck was of the Silvie de
Grasse which brought Thornton home from Boston. She was formerly a packet of
'2,@00 tons, built of live- oak, and running between New York anil Havre. She
loaded with lumber for San Francisco, but in descending the river ran upon a
rock and split. Eighteen years afterward her figure-head and a part of her hull
stood above the water. What wa3 left was then sold to A. S. Mercer, the iron
being still in good order, and the locust and oak kners and timbers perfectly
sound. * Oregonian, in Puget Sound Gazette, April 15, 1867. The wreck on the
bar was cf L'Etoile da. Matin, before mentioned in connection with the return
to Oregon ef Archbishop lilancliet, and the arrival of the Catholic reenforce­ment
in 1847. Returning to Oregon in 1849, the captain not finding a pilot outside
undertook to run in by the south channel, in which attempt he was formerly so
successful, but its conrse having shifted, he soon found his ship fast on the
sands, while an American bark that had followed hirn, but drew

10feet less water, passed safely in. The
small life-boats were all lost in lowering, but after passing through great
dangers the ship was worked into Baker Bay without a rudder, with a loosened
keel and most of the pumps broken, aid having been rendered by Latta of the
Hudson’s Bay Company and some Indians. A box rudder was constructed, and the
vessel taken to Port­land, and landed where the warehouse of Allen and Lewis
later stood. The cargo belonged to Francis Menes, who saved most of it, and who
opened a store in Oregon City, where he resided four years, finally settling at
St Louis on French Prairie. He died December 1807. The hull of the Morning Star
was sold to Couch and Flanders, and by them to Charles Hutchins, and was burned
for the iron and copper. Eugene La Forrest, in Portland Oregonian, March 28,
1868.

Hist. Ob.,
Vol. II. 1

shore was lined with
a fleet of barks, brigs, and ships, and where wharves and warehouses were in
great demand.17 In Oregon City the mills were kept busy making flour
and lumber,18 and new saw-mills were erected on the Columbia.19

The farmers did not
at first derive much benefit from the change in affairs, as labor was so high
and scarce, and there was a partial loss of crops in conse­quence. Furthermore
their wheat was already in store with the merchants and millers at a fixed
price, or contracted for to pay debts. They therefore could not demand the
advanced price of wheat till the crop of 1849 was harvested, while the
mercliant-millers had almost a whole year in which to make flour out of wheat
costing them not more than five eighths of a dollar a bushel in goods, and
which they sold at ten and twelve dollars a barrel at the mills. If able to
send it to San Francisco, they realized double that price. As with wheat so
with other things,20 the speculators had the best of it.

17Couch
returned in August from the cast, in the bark Madonna, with G. A. Flanders as
mate, in the service of the Shermans, shipping merchants of New York. They
built a wharf and warehouse, and had soon laid the founda­tion of a handsome
fortune. Eugene La Forrest, in Portland Oregonian, Jan. 29, 1870; Deady, in
Trans. Or. Pioneer ylssor., 1876, 33-4. Nathaniel Crosby, also of l’ortland,
was owner of the 0. C. Raymond, which carried on so profit­able a trade that he
could afford to pay the master §300 a month, the mate !?200, and ordinary
seamen $100. lie had built himself a residence costing $5,000 before the gold discovery.
Honolulu Friend, Oct. 15, 1S49.

18McLoughlin's miller was -Tames Bachan, a
Scotchman. The island grist­mill was in charge of Robert Pentland, an
Englishman, miller for Abemethy. Crawford's Nar., MS.

19A mill was erected ir. 1S48 on Milton
Creek, which falls into Scappoose Bay, an inlet of the lower Willamette at its
junction with the Columbia, wliero the town of Milton was subsequently laid off
and had a brief existence. It was owned by T. II. Ilemsaker, and built by
Joseph Cunningham. It began running in 1849, and was subsequently sold to
Captain N. Crosbey and Thomas W. Smith, who employed the bark Louisiana,
Captain Williams, carrying lumber to San Francisco. Crawford's Nar., MS., 217.
By the bark Diamond, which arrived from Boston in August, Iliram Clark
supercargo, Abernethy received a lot of goods and took Clark as partner.
Together they built a saw and planing mill on the Columbia at Oak I’oint,
opposite the original Oak Point of the Winship brothers, a more convenient
place for getting timber or loading vessels than Oregon City. The island mill
at the latter place was rented to W alter Pomeroy, and subsequently sold, a* I
shall relate hereafter. Another mill was erected above and back of Tongue Point
by Henry Marland in 1849. Id. ; Honolulu Friend, Oct. 3, 1849.

2’ In the
Spectator of Oct. IS, 1849, the price of beef on foot is given at

When the General Lane
sailed from Oregon City with lumber and provisions, there were several tons of
eggs on board which had been purchased at the market price, and which were sold
by the captain at thirty cents a dozen to a passenger who obtained for them at
Sacramento a dollar each. The lanro increase

t_o

of home productions,
with the influx of gold by the return of fortunate miners, soon enabled the
farmers to pay oft’ their debts and improve their places, a labor upon which
they entered with ardor in anticipation of the donation law. Some of those who
could arrange their affairs, went a second time to California in 1849; among
the new companies being one of several hun­dred Canadians and half-breeds,
under the charge of Father Delorme, few of whom ever returned alive, owing to
one of those mysterious epidemics, developed under certain not well understood
conditions, attack­ing their camp.21

On the whole the
effect of the California gold dis­covery was to unsettle the minds of the
people and change their habits. To the Hudson’s Bay Company it was in some
respects a damage, and in others a benefit. The fur-trade fell off, and this,
together with the operation of the treaty of 184G, compelling them to pay
duties on goods from English ports, soon effected the abandonment of their
business in United States territory. For a time they had a profitable' trade in
gold-dust, but when coined gold and American and Mexican money came into free
circulation, there was an end of that speculation.22 Every
circumstance now conspired to drive British trade out of Oregon

butter, 62 anil 75
cents; cheese, 50 cents; flour, 914 per barrel; wheat, $1.50 and £2 ptr bushel,
and oats the same. Potatoes were worth !?2.50 per bushel; apples, i?10. These
were the articles produced in the country, and these prices were good. On the
other hand, groceries and dry goods, which were imported, cost less than
formerly, because, while consumption was less, more cargoes were arriving. Iron
and nails, glass and paint were still high, and cooking-stoves brought from £70
to §130.

• F. X. Matthieu, who
was one of the company, says that out of GOO only 150 remained alive, and that
Delorme narrowly escaped. Refugee, IIS., 15; lilanchct’s Hist. Cath. Ch. in
(Jr., ISO.

as fast as the
country could get along independently of it; and inasmuch as the fur company
had, through the dependence of the American community upon them, been enabled
to make a fair profit on a large amount of goods, it was scarcely to be
regretted that they should now be forced to give way, and retire to new
territory where only fur companies properly be­long.

Among the events of
1849 which were directly due to the mining episode was the minting of about
fifty thousand dollars at Oregon City, under an act of the colonial legislature
passed at its last session, without license from the United States. The rea­sons
for this act, which were recited in the preamble, were that in use as currency
was a large amount of gold-dust which was mixed with base metals and im­purities
of other kinds, and that great irregularities in weighing existed, to the
injury of the community. Two members only, Medorum Crawford and W. .1. Martin,
voted against the bill, and these entered on the records a formal protest on
the ground that the measure was unconstitutional and inexpedient.23
The

23Grover’s Or. Archives, 311, 315.
The act was approved by the governor Fell. 1G, 1810. According to its
provisions the mint was to be established at Oregon City; its officers, elected
annually by the house of representatives, were to give cach $30,0()0 bonds, and
draw a salary of $1,999 each perannum, to be paid out o£ proceeds of the
institution. The director was empowered to pledge tlie faith of the territory
for means to put the mint in operation; and vas required to publish in some
newspaper in the territorj a quarterly state­ment, or by sending such a report
to the county clerk of each county. The act provided for an assayer ami melter
and coiner, the latter being forbidden to use any alloys whatever. The weight
of the pieces was to be live penny­weights and ten pennyweights respectively,
no more and no less. The dies for stamping were required to have on one side
the Roman figure five, for the pieces of live pennyweights, and the Roman
figure ten, for the pieces of ten pennyweights, the reverse sides to be stamped
with the words Oregon Territory, and the date of the year around the face, with
the ‘arms of Ore­gon’ in the centre. What then constituted the ‘ arms of Oregon
’ is a ques­tion. Drown, Will. Valley, MS., 13, says that only parts of the
impression remain in the Oregon archives, and that it has gone out of the
memory of everybody, including Holderness, secretary of state in 1848. Thornton
says that the auditor’s seal of the provisional government consisted of a star
in the centre of a figure so arranged as to represent a larger star, containing
the letters Auditor 0. T., and that it is still preserved in the Oregon
archives. Htlics, MS., 6. But as the law plainly described the coins as having
the arms of Oregon on the same side with the date and the name of the
territory, then

iithe idea of the legislators was carried
out, as it seems to have been, a beaver

reason for the
passage of the act was, really, the low price of gold-dust, the merchants
having the power to fix the rate of gold as well as of wheat, receiving it for
goods at twelve dollars an ounce, the Hudson’s Bay Company buying it at ten
dollars and paying in coin procured for the purpose.24

The effect of the law
was to prevent the circulation of gold-dust altogether, as it forbade weighing.
No steps were taken toward building a mint, which would have been impossible
had not the erection of a terri­torial government intervened. But as there was
henceforth considerable coin coming into the country to exchange at high prices
for every available product, there was no serious lack of money.25
On the con­trary there was a disadvantage in the readiness with which silver
was introduced from California, barrels of Mexican and Peruvian dollars being
thrown upon the market, which had been sent to California to pay for gold-dust.
The Hudson’s Bay Company allowed only fifty cents for a Peruvian dollar, while
the Amer­ican merchants took them at one hundred cents. Some of the Oregon
miners were shrewd enough to buy up Mexican silver dollars, and even less
valuable coins, with gold-dust at sixteen dollars an ounce, and take

must have been the
design on the territorial seal, as it was on the coins. All disbursements of
the mint, together with the pay of officers, must be made in the stamped pieces
authorized by the act; and whatever remained of profits, sifter deducting
expenses, was to be applied to pay the Caytwe war expenses. Penalties were
provided for the punishment of any private person who should coin gold or
attempt to pass unstamped gold. The officers appointed v ero James Taylor,
director; Truman P. Powers, treasurer; W. H. Willson, melter und coiner, and G.
L. Curry, assayei. Or. Spectator, ]'eb. 22, 1849.

2iBarnes’
Or. and Cat., MS., 9; Buck’s Enterprises, MS., 8; Brown’s Will. Val., MS., 14.
This condition of the currency caused a petition to be drawn up and numerously
signed, setting forth that in consequence of the ncglcct of the United States
government the colonists must combine against the greed of the merchants in
this matter. There was gold-dust in the territory, tin y declared, to the value
of two millions of dollars, and more anrh iog. 15esides the losses they were
forced to bear by the depreciation of gold-dust, there was the inconvenience of
handling it in its original state, and also the loss attending its frequent
division. These objections to a gold-dust currency being likely to exist for
some time, or as long as mining was followed, they prayed the legislature to
pass a coinage act, which was done as I have said. Or. Archives, MS., 188.

'a
Deady s Hist. Or., MS..

them to Oregon where
dust could be readily obtained at twelve or fourteen dollars an ounce.26
The gold coins in general circulation were Spanish doubloons, halves, and
quarters. Such was the scarcity of con­venient currency previous to this
overplus that silver coin had been at a premium of ten per cent,27
but fell rapidly to one per cent.

The act of the
legislature did not escape criticism.28 But before the law could be
carried into effect Gov­ernor Lane had issued his proclamation placing the
territory under the government of the United States, and it became ineffectual,
as well as illegal. The want, however, remaining the same, a partnership was
formed called the Oregon Exchange Company, which proceeded to coin money after
its own fashion, and on its own responsibility. The members were W. K.
Kilborne, Theophilus Magruder, James Tay­lor, George Abernethv, W. H. WiUson,
W. H. Hector, J. G. Campbell, and Noyes Smith. Rector “beingthe only member
with any mechanical skill ” was depu­tized to furnish the stamps and dies,
which he did,

usinff a small
machine for turning iron. The enyrav- * -i . •

ing was done by
Campbell. When all was in readi­ness, Hector was employed as coiner, no
assaying being done or attempt made to part the silver from the gold. Indeed,
it was not then known in Oregon that there was any silver in the crude metal,
and all the pieces of the same denomination Avere made of the same weight,
though the color varied considerably. About thirty thousand dollars were made
into five­** W. H. Rector’s Oregon Exchange Company, in Or. Archives, MS., 193.

Moss'
Pioneer Times, MS., 59.

28Some severe strictures were passed upon
it by A. E. Wait, a lawyer, and at that time editor of the Spectator, who declared
with emphasis that thu people of Oregon desired no law which conflicted with
the laws of the United States; but only asked for the temporary privilege under
the provisional gov­ernment of coining gold to meet the requirements of
business for the present; r.nd that if this act was to be numbered among those
which congress was asked to confirm, it was a direct insult to the United
States. Wait may have been right as to the general sentiment of the people, or
of the best and most patriotic men of the American party, but it is plain from
the language of the memorial to the legislature that its framers were in a mood
to defy the gov­ernment v, liich had so long appeared to be unmindful of them.

dollar pieces; and
not quite the same amount into ten- dollar coins.29 This coinage
raised the price of dust from twelve to sixteen dollars an ounce, and caused a
great saving to the territory. Being thrown into cir­culation, and quickly
followed by an abundance of money from California, the intended check on the avarice
uf the merchants was effected.30 The Oregon Exchange coinage went by
the name ‘beaver money,’ and was eventually all called in by the United States
mint in San Francisco, a premium being paid upon it, as it was of greater value
than the denominations on the coins indicated.31

I have said that the
effect of the gold discovery was to change the habits of the people. Where all

29The ten-dollar pieces differed from the
fives by having over the beaver only the letters 1K. M. T.
li. 0. S,5 underneath which were seven stars. Be­

neath the beaver was
‘0. T., 1849.’ On the reverse was ‘Oregon Exchange Company * around the margin,
and ‘ 10 L). 20 G. Native Gold’ with ‘Ten D.’ in the centre. Thornton’s Or.
Relics, MS., 5.

G.Campbell had the dies the last I knew of
them. He promised to destroy them;’ to which J. Henry Brown adds that they were
placed in the custody of the secretary of state, together with a $10 piece, and
that he had made several impressions of the dies in block tin. A set of these
impressions was presented to me in 1878 by Mr Brown, and is in my collection.

was economy and
thrift before, there was now a ten­dency to profligacy and waste. This was
natural. They had suffered so long the oppression of a want that could not be
relieved, and the restraint of desires that could not be gratified without
money, that when money came, and with such ease, it was like a draught of
brandy upon an empty stomach. There was in­toxication, sometimes delirium. Such
was especially the case with the Canadians,32 some of whom brought
home thirty or forty thousand dollars, but W'ere unable to keep it. The same
was true of others. The pleasure of spending, and of buying such articles of
luxury as now began to find their way to Oregon from an overstocked California
market, was too great to be resisted, if they could not keep their money, how­ever,
they put it into circulation, and so contributed to supply a want in the
community, and enable those who could not go to the mines, through fear of
losing their land claims, or other cause, to share in the golden harvest.33

It has been held by
some that the discovery of gold at this time seriously retarded the progress of
Oregon.This was not the case in general, though it may have been so in
particular instances. It took agriculturists temporarily from their farms and
mechanics from their shops, thereby checking the steady if slow march of improvement.
But it found a market for agricultural products, raising prices several hundred
per cent, and enabled the farmer to get gold for his produce, instead of a poor
class of goods at exorbitant prices. It checked for two or three years the
progress of building. While mill-' owners obtained enormous prices for their
lumber, the wages of mechanics advanced from a dollar and a half a day to eight
dollars, and the day laborer was able to demand and obtain four dollars per day35

where he had received
but one. Men who before were almost hopelessly in debt were enabled to pay. By
the amended currency law, all debts that had to be collected by law were
payable in gold instead of wheat. Many persons were in debt, and their credit­ors
hesitated to sell their farms and thus ruin them; but all the same the dread of
ruin hung over them, crushing their spirits. Six months in the gold mines
changed all, and lifted the burden from their hearts. Another good effect was
that it drew to the country a class, not agriculturists, nor mechanics, nor
profes­sional men, but projectors of various enterprises bene­ficial to the
public, and who in a short time built steamboats in place of sloops and
flatboats, and estab­lished inland transportation for passengers and goods,
which gradually displaced the pack-train and the universal horseback travel.
These new men enabled the United States government to carry out some of its
proposed measures of relief in favor of the people of Oregon, in the matter of
a mail service, to open trade with foreign ports, to establish telegraphic com­munication
with California, and eventually to introduce railroads. These were certainly no
light benefits, and were in a measure the result of the gold discovery. Without
it, though the country had continued to fill up with the same class of people
who first settled it, several generations must have passed before so much could
have been effected as was now quickly accomplished. Even with the aid of
government the country must have progressed slowly, owing to its distance from
business and progressional centres, and the expense of maintaining intercourse
with the parent government. Moreover, during this period of slow growth the
average condition of the people with re­spect to intellectual progress would
have retrograded. The adult population, having to labor for the support of
families, and being deprived through distance and the want of money from
keeping up their former intellectual pursuits, would have ccased to feel their

former interest in
learning and literature. Their chil­dren, with but poor educational facilities
and w ithout the example, would have grown up with acquire­ments inferior to
those of their parents before emi­grating. Reared in poor houses, without any
of the elegancies of life,36 and with but few of the ordinary
conveniences, they would have missed the refining influences of healthy
environment, and have fallen below the level of their time in regard to the
higher enjoyments of living. The people being chiefly agri­cultural and pastoral,
from their isolation would have become fixed in their ideas and prejudices. As
the means of living became plenty and little exertion was required, they would
become attached to an easy, careless, unthinking mode of existence, with a ten­dency
even to resent innovations in their habits to which a higher degree of
civilization might invite them. Such is the tendency of poverty and isolation,
or of isolation and rude physical comforts, without some constant refining
agency at band.

One of the immediate
effects of the mining exodus of 1848 was the suspension of the legislature.37
On the day appointed by law for the assembling of the legislative body only
nine members were present, representing four counties; and this notwithstanding
the governor had issued proclamations to fill vacan­cies occurring through the
resignation of members- elect.3'* Even after the sergeant-at-arms
had com­pelled the appearance of four members from Cham-

3“ The
members elected to fill vacancies were Samuel Parker, in t ham- poeg County; D.
Hill, in Tualatin; A. F. Hedges and M. Crawford, in Cla<k- ama», Id., 2G0.
Two other substitutes were elected—Thomas J. Lovulady of Polk county, and A. M.
Locke of Benton, neither of whom served.

poeg, Polk, and Linn
counties, tliere were still but. thirteen out of twenty-three allowed hy the
appor­tionment. After organizing by choosing Ralph Wil­cox speaker, W. G.
T’Yault chief clerk, and William Holmes sergeant-at-arms and door-keeper, the
house adjourned till the first Monday in February, to give time for special
elections to fill the numerous vacan­cies.

Lewis County remained
unrepresented, nor did Avery of Benton appear until brought with a war­rant, an
organization being effected with seventeen members. Wilcox declining to act as
speaker, Levi A. Rice was chosen in his place, and sworn into office by S. M.
Holderness, secretary of state. T’Yault was reelected chief clerk; James Cluse
enrolling clerk;

39 Kalph
Wilcox was born in Ontario county, New York, July 9, 1S18. He graduated at
Geneva medical college in that state, soon after which he re­moved to Missouri,
where on the 11th of October 1845 he married, emigrat­ing to Oregon the
following year. In January 1847 he was appointed by Abemethy county judge of
Tualatin vice W. Burris resigned, and the same year was elected to the
legislature from the same county, and re-elected in

1848.Besides being chosen speaker at this session,
he was elected speaker of the lower house of the territorial legislature in
1850-1, and president of the council in 1853-4. During the years 1856-8 he was
register of the U. S. land office at Oregon City, and was elected in the latter
year county judge of "Washington (formerly Tualatin) county, an office
which he held till 1862, when he was again elected to the house of representatives
for two years. In July 1865 he was appointed clerk of the U. S. district court
for the district of Oregon, and U. S. commissioner for the same district, which
office he con­tinued to hold down to the time of his death, which occurred by
suicide, April 18, 1877, having shot himself in a state of mental depression
caused by paralysis. Notwithstanding his somewhat free living he had continued
to enjoy the confidence of the public for thirty years. The Portland bar passed
the usual eulogistic resolutions. Oregon City Enterprise, April 26, 1877; S. F.
Alta, April 19, 1877; Cal. Christian Advocate, May 3, 1877; Portland Oregonian,
April 21, 1877; Deady, in Or. Pioneer Asso. Trans., 1875, 37-8.

Stephen H. L. Meek
sergeant-at-arms, and "Wilson Blain chaplain.

Aberuetliy in his
message to the legislature informed them that his proclamation had called them
together for the purpose of transacting the business which should have been
done at the regular session, relating chiefly to the adjustment of the expenses
of the Cayuse war, which it was expected the United States government would
assume; and also to act upon the amendments to the organic law concerning the
oath of office, the prohibition of the sale and manufacture of ardent spirits,
and to make the clerks of the sev­eral counties recorders of land claims, which
amend­ments had been sanctioned by the vote of the people at the regular
election. Information had been re­ceived, he said, that the officers necessary
to establish and carry on the territorial government, for which they had so
long hoped, were on their way and would soon arrive;40 and he
plainly indicated that he expected the matters pointed out to be settled in a
certain way, before the new government should be established, confirming the
acts of the retiring organization.41

The laws passed
relating to the Cayuse war were an act to provide for the pay of the
commissioned olfi-

:0Tiiis
information seems to have 1)6611 brought to Oregon in January

1849,by 0. C. I'ratt, one of the associate judges,
who happened to be in Cali­fornia, whither he had gone in pursuit of health.
His commission met him at Monterey about the last of Nov., and in Dec. he left
for Oregon on the bark Undine which after a lung voyage, and being carried into
Shoal water Bay, finally got into the Columbia in Jan. Saltm Or. Statesman,
Aug. 7,1852; Or. Spectator, Jan. 25, 1849.

41He submitted the report of the
adjutant-general, by which it appeared that the amount duo to privates and
non-commissioned officers was §109,­311.50, besides the pay of the officers and
those persons employed in the different departments. He recommended that a law
should be passed author­izing scrip to be issued for that amount, redeemable at
an early date, and bearing interest until paid. The belief that the general
government would become responsible would, he said, make the scrip salable, and
enable the holders to whom it should be issued to realize something immediately
for their services. Grover’s Or, Archives, 273. This was the beginning of specu­lation
in Oregon war scrip. As to the report of the commissary and quarter­master-general,
the governor left that for the legislature to examine into, and the accounts so
far as presented in these departments amounted to something like $57,000,
making the cost of the war without the salaries of the commis­sioned officers
over §1GO,000. This was subsequently much reduced by a commission, aa I shall
show in the proper place.

eers employed in the
service of the territory during the hostilities, and an act regulating the
issuing and

redemption of scrip,42
making it payable to the person to whom first issued, or bearer, the treasurer
being authorized to exchange or redeem it whenever offered, with interest.
Another act provided for the manner of exchange, and interest payments. An act
was passed making a change in the oath of office, and making county clerks
recorders of land claims, to which the governor refused his signature on the
plea that the United States laws would provide for the manner of recording
claims. On the other hand the legislature refused to amend the organic law by
put­ting in the word ‘prohibit’ in place of 'regulate/ but passed an act making
it necessary for every person applying for a license to sell or manufacture
ardent spirits, to take an oath not to sell, barter, or give liquor to any
Indian, fixing the penalty at one hundred dollars; and no distilleries were to
be allowed beyond the limits of the white settlements. With this poor
substitute for the entire interdiction he had so long desired, the governor was
compelled to be so far sat­isfied as to append his signature.

Besides the act
providing for weighing and stamp­ing gold, of which I have spoken, little more
was done than is here mentioned. Some contests took place between members over
proposed enactments, and Jesse Applegate,4a as customary with him,
offered

“The first act
mentioned here I have been unable to find. I quote the Or. Spectator, Feb. 22,
1849. la place of it I find in the Or. Lawn, 180-9, 5(>-8, an act providing
for ‘the final settlement of claims against the Oregon government for and on
account of the Cayuse -war,’ by which a board of com­missioners was appointed
to settle and adjust those claims; said commission­ers being Thomas Magruder,
Samuel Burch, and Wesley Shannon, whose duty was to exhibit in detail a
statement of all accounts, whether for money or property furnished the
government, or for services rendered, ‘either as a citizen, soldier, or officer
of the army. ’ This might be construed as an act to provide for the pay of
commissioned officers.

*3 Kver
since first passing through southern Oregon on his exploring expe­dition, he
had entertained * high opinion of the country; and he brought in a bill to
charter an association called the Klamath Company, which was to hive power to
treat with the natives and purchase lands from them. Mr Hedges opposed the
bill, and offered a resolution, 'that it was not in the power of the house to
grant a charter to an} individual, or company, for

resolutions and
protests ad arbitrium et proposition. Another man, Samuel R. Thurston, an
emigrant of 1847, displayed indications of a purpose to make his talents
recognized. In the course of proceedings A. L. Lewis, of Vancouver county,
offered a resolution that the superintendent of Indian affairs be required to
report,44 presently asking if there were an Indian superintendent in
Oregon at all.

The governor replied
that II. A. Gr. Lee had re­signed the superintendency because the compensation
bore no proportion to the services required, and that since Lee’s resignation
he had performed the duties of superintendent, not being able to find any
competent person who would accept the office. In a second com­munication he
reported on Indian affairs that the course pursued had been conciliatory, and
that the Indians had seemingly become quiet, and had ceased their clamor for
pay for their lands, waiting for the United States to move in the matter; and
the Cayuse murderers had not been secured. With regard to the confiscation of
Indian lands, he returned for answer

treating for wild
lands in the territory, or for holding treaties w ith the Indian tribes for the
purchase of lands,’all of which was very apparent. But Mr Applegate introduced
the counter resolution ‘ that if the doctrine in the reso­lution last passed be
true, then the powers of the Oregon government are un­equal to the wants of the
people,’ which was of course equally true, as it was only provisional.

44 He wished
to know, he said, whether the superintendent had upon his own or the authority
of any other officer of the government confiscated to the use of the people of
Oregon any Indian country, and if so, why; if any grant or charter had been
given by him to any citizen or citizens for the set­tlement of any Indian
country, and if so, by what authority; and whether he had enforced the lavs
prohibiting the sale of liquor to Indians. ‘A. Lee Lewis,' says Applegate, ‘ a
bright young man, the son of a chief factor, afterward superintendent of Indian
ailairs, waa the first representative of Vancouver district.’ Views of Hist.,
MS., 45. Another British subject, who took a part in the provisional
government, ■was
Richard Lane, appointed by Abernethy county judge of Vanconver in 1S47, vice
Dugald MeTavish resigned. Or. Spec­tator, Jan. 21, 1817. Lane came to Oregon in
1837 as a clerk to the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was a ripe scholar and a good
lawyer. He lived for some time at Oregon City, and afterward at Olympia,
holding various offices, among others those of clerk of one branch of the territorial
legislature o* Washington, clerk of the supreme and district courts, county
auditor, and clerk of the city corporation of Olympia. He died at The Dalles in
the Bpring of 1877, from an overdose of morphine, apparently taken with sui­cidal
intent. He was then about sixty years of age. Italics Mountaineer, in Seattle
Pacific Tribune, March 2, 1877.

that he believed Lee
had invited the settlement of Americans in the Cayuse country, but that he knew
nothing of any charter having been granted to any one, and that he presumed the
settlement would have been made by each person locating a claim of six hundred
and forty acres. He reiterated the opinion expressed to Lee, when the
superintendent sought his advice, that the Cay uses having been engaged in war
with the Americans the appropriation of their lands was justifiable, and would
be so regarded by the neighboring tribes. As to liquor being sold to the
Indians, though he believed it was done, he had never yet been able to prove it
in a single instance, and recommended admitting Indian testimony.

The legislature
adjourned February 16th, having put, so far as could be done, the provisional
govern­ment in order, to be confirmed by act of congress, •even to passing an
act providing for the payment of the several departments—a necessary but
hitherto much neglected duty of the organization45—and also to the
election of territorial officers for another term.4/3 These were
never permitted to exercise official func­tions, as but two weeks elapsed
between the close of the session and the arrival of Lane with the new order of
things.

Xote finally the
effect of the gold discovery on immigration. California in 1849 of course
offered

15Th<
salary of the governor was. nominally $v>00, hut really nothing, as the
condition of the treasury was such as to make drafts upon it worthless except
in a few cases. Abemothy did nut receive his pay from the provisional
government, and as the territorial act did not confirm the statutes passed by
the several colonial legislatures, he had no redress. After Oregon had become a
state, and when by a series of misfortunes he had lost nearly all bis posses­sions,
after more than 20 years’ waiting Abcrnethy received his salary as governor of
the Oregon colony by an appropriation of the Oregon legislature Oct. 1S72. The
amount was §2,986.21. which congress was asked to make good to the state._

the great attraction.
The four or five hundred who were not dazzled with the visions of immediate
wealth that beckoned southward the great army of gold-seekers, but who suffered
with them the common discomforts of the way, were glad to part company at the
place where their roads divided on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains.

()n the Oregon part
of the road no particular dis­couragement or distress befell the travellers
until they reached The Dalles and began the passage of the mountains or the
river. As no emigration had ever passed over the last ninety miles of their
journey to the Willamette Valley without accident or loss, so these had their
trials with floods and mountain de­clivities/7 arriving, however, in
good time, after having been detained in the mountains by forest fires which
blocked the road with fallen timber. This was an­other form of the inevitable
hardship which year after year fell upon travellers in some shape on this part
of their journey. The fires were an evidence that the rains came later than
usual, and that the former trials from this source of discomfort were thus
absent.43 Such was the general absorption of the public mind in
other affairs that the immigration re­ceived little notice.

Before gold was
discovered it was land that drew men to the Pacific, land seen afar off through
a rosy mist which made it seem many times more valuable and beautiful than the
prolific valleys of the middle and western states. And now, even before the
dona­tion law had passed, the tide had turned, and gold was the magnet more
potent than acres to attract. How far population was diverted from the
north-west, and to what extent California contributed to the develop­

47Gen. Smith in his report to the secretary
of war said that the roads to Oregon were made to come iato it, but not to go
out of it, referring to the steep descents of the western declivities uf the
Cascade Mountains.

48A long dry autumn in 1849 was followed by
freshets in the Willamette Valley in Dec. and Jan., which carried off between
$10,01)0 and &K),000 worth of property. Or. Spectator, Jun. 10, 1330.

ment of the resources
of Oregon,4a the progress of this history will show. Then, perhaps,
after all it will be seen that the distance of Oregon from the Sierra Foothills
proved at this time the greatest of blessings, being near enough for commercial
communication, and yet so far away as to escape the more evil conse­quences
attending the mad scramble for wealth, such as social dissolution, the rapine
of intellect and prin­ciple, an overruling spirit of gambling—a delirium of
development, attended by robbery, murder, and all uncleanness, and followed by
reaction and death.

w When J.
Q. Thornton was in Washington in 1848, he had made a seal for the territory,
the design of which was appropriate. In the centre a shield, two compartments.
Lower compartment, in !-he foreground a plough; in the distance, mountains. In
thu upper compartment, a ship under fu!1 sail. The crest a beaver;
the sinister supporter an Indian with bow and arrow, ami a mantle of skins over
his shoulders; the dexter supporter an eagle with w ing-; displayed; the
motto—alie vokt propriti—I fly with my own wing. Field of the lower compartment
argent; of tlie upper blue. This seal was presented to the governor and
secretary in 1850, and by them adopted. By act of Jan. 1854, it was directed to
be deposited, and recorded in the office of the secretary, to remain a public
record; but so far as can be ascertained it was never done. Or. Otn. Laws,
1845-1864, p. 627. For fac-similu of seal see p. 487, this vol.

IIist.
Or., Vol. II. 5

CHAPTER III

LANE’S
ADMINISTRATION.

1849-lSjO.

Indian
Affairs—Troubles in Cowlitz Valley—Fort Nisqually At­tacked—Arrival of the United States Ship
‘Massachusetts’—A Military Post Established near Nisqually—Thornton as Sub-
Indian Agent—Meeting of the Legislative Assembly—Measures Adopted—Judicial
Districts—A Travelling Court op Justice— The Mounted Rule Regiment—Establishment op Military Posts at Fort Hall,
Vancouver, Stklaoqom, and The Dalles—The Van­couver Claim—General Persiper F.
Smith—His Drunken Sol­diers—The Dalles Claim—TuiiL and Execution of the Whitman
Murderers.

Governor
Lane lost no time in starting the political wheels of the territory. First a
census must be taken in order to make the proper apportionment before or­dering
an election ; and this duty the marshal and his deputies quickly performed.1 Meanwhile
the governor applied himself to that branch of his office which made him
superintendent of Indian affairs, the Indians themselves—those that were left
of them—being prompt to remind him of the many years they had been living on
promises, and the crumbs which were dropped from the tables of their white
brothers. The result was more promises, more fair words, and further assurances
of the intentions of the great chief of the Americans toward his naked and
hungry red children. Nevertheless the superintendent did decide a case

1The census returns Bhowed a total of
8,785 Americans of all ages and both sexes and 298 foreigners. From this
enumeration may be gathered some idea of the great exodaa to the gold mines of
both Americans and Jirit- uh subjects. Indians and Ilawaiians were not
enumerated. Honolulu Friend, Oct. 1849, 51.

against some white
men of Linn City who had pos­sessed themselves of the site of a native fishing
village on the west bank of the Willamette near the falls, after maliciously
setting fire to the wretched habita­tions and consuming the poor stock of
supplies contained therein. The Indians were restored to their original
freehold, and quieted with a promise of indemnification, which, on the arrival
of the first ten thousand dollar appropriation for the Indian ser­vice iu
April, was redeemed by a few presents of small value, the money being required
for other purposes, none having been forwarded for the use of the terri­tory.2

In order to allay a
growing feeling of uneasiness among the remoter settlements, occasioned by the
insolent demeanor of the Ivliketats, who frequently visited the Willamette and
perpetrated minor offences, from demanding a prepared meal to stealing an ox or
a horse, as the Molallas had done on previous occa­sions, Lane visited the
tribes near The Dalles and along the north side of the Columbia, including the
Kliketats, all of whom at the sight of the new white chief professed
unalterable friendship, thinking that now surely something besides words would
be forth­coming. A few trifling gifts were bestowed.3 Pres­ently a
messenger arrived from Puget Sound with information of the killing of an American,
Leander C. Wallace, of Cowlitz Valley, and the wounding of two others, by the
Snoqualimichs. It was said that they had concocted a plan for capturing Fort
Nisqually by fomenting a quarrel with a small and inoffensive tribe living near
the fort, and whom they employed sometimes as herdsmen. They reckoned upon the
com­pany’s interference, which was to furnish the oppor­tunity. As they had
expected, when they began the

3Lane says the amount expended on
presents was about $200; and that Vie made peace between the Walla, Wallas and
Yakiniaa who were about to gu to war.

affray, the Indians
attacked ran to the fort, and Tolmie, who was in charge, ordered the gates
opened to give them refuge. At this moment, when the Snoquali- miehs were
making a dash to crowd into the fort on the pretence of following their
enemies, Wallace, Charles Wren, and a Mr Lewis were riding toward it, having
come from the Cowlitz to trade. On seeing their danger, they also made all
haste to get inside, but were a moment too late, 'when, the gates being closed,
the disappointed savages fired upon them, as I have said, besides killing one
of the friendly Indians who did not gain the shelter of the fort.4
Thibault, a Canadian, then bewail firino1 on the assailants from

7OO_

one of the bastions.
The Indians finding they had failed retreated before the company could attack
them in full force. There was no doubt that had the Sno- qualimichs succeeded in
capturing the fort, they would have massacred every white person on the Sound.
Finding that they had committed themselves, they sent word to the American
settlers, numbering about a dozen families, that they were at liberty to go out
of the country, leaving their property behind. But to this offer the settlers
returned answer that they intended to stay, and if their property was
threatened should fight. Instead of fleeing, they built block houses at
Tumwater and Cowlitz prairie, to which they could retire in case of alarm, and
sent a messen­ger to the governor to inform him of their situation.

There were then at
Oregon City neither armies nor organized courts. Lieutenant Hawkins and five
men

4This is according to the account of the
afeir given by several authorities. See Tolmie in the Feb. 3d issue of Truth
Teller, a small sheet published at Fort Steilacoom in 1838; also in Hint. Puget
Sound, MS., 33-5. A -writer in the Olympia Standard of April 11, 1868, says
that Wren had his back against the wall irnd was edging in. feet was shat out
by Walter Ross, the clerk, who with one of the Nis<[uallies was on guard.
This writer also says that Patkanim, a chief of the Siioqaalirmcbs, afterward
famous in the Indian wars, was inside the fort talking with Tolmie, while the
chief’s brother shot at and killed Wallace. These statements, while not
intentionally false, were colored by rumor, and by the prejudice against the
fur company, which had its origin with the first settlers of the 1’uget Sound
region, aa it had had in the region south of the Columbia. See al»o Roberta’
Recollections, MS., 35; Rabbison's Growth of Towns, MS., 17.

who had not deserted
constituted the military force at Lane’s command. Acting with characteristic
prompt­ness, he set out at once for Puget Sound, accompanied by these, taking
with him a supply of arms and ammunition, and leaving George L. Curry acting
sec­retary by his appointment, Pritchett not yet having arrived. At Tumwater he
was overtaken by an ex­press from Vancouver, notifying him of the arrival of
the propeller Massachusetts, Captain Wood, from Boston, by way of Valparaiso
and the Hawaiian Islands, having on board two companies of artillery under
Brevet-Major Hathaway, who sent Lane word that if he so desired, a part of his
force should be moved at once to the Sound.5

Lane returned to the
Columbia, at the same time despatching a letter to Tolmie at Fort Ni,squally,
re­questing him to inform the hostile Indians that should they commit any
further outrages they would be vis­ited with chastisement, for now he had
fighting men

enough to destroy
them; also making a request that no ammunition should be furnished to the
Indians.6 His plan, lie informed the secretary of war after­ward,
was, in the event of a military post being established on the Sound, to secure
the cooperation of Major Hathaway in arresting and punishing the Indians
according to law for the murder of American citizens.

On reaching
Vancouver, about the middle of June, he found the Massachusetts ready to
depart,7 and Hathaway encamped in the rear of the Hudson’s Bay
Company’s fort with one company of artillery, the other, under Captain B. H.
Hill, having been left at Astoria, quartered in the buildings erected by the

5 The
transport Massachusetts entered the Columbia May 7th, by the sail­ing
directions of Captain Gelston, without difficulty. Honolulu Friend, Nov.

1,1849. This was the first government
vessel to get safely into the river.

7The Massachusetts went to Portland,
where she was loaded with lumber for the use of the government in California in
building army quarters at Beni­cia; the U. S. transport Anita was likewise
employed* Ingall's llept., in 31st Cong., 2d Sess., II. Ex. Doc. 1, 284.

Shark’s
crew in 184G.3 It was soon arranged
between Hathaway and Lane that Hill’s company should es­tablish a post near
Nisqually, when the Indians would bo called upon to surrender the murderer of
Wallace. The troops were removed from Astoria about the mid-^ die of July,
proceeding by the English vessel Ilar- pooner to Nisqually.

On the 13th of May
the governor’s proclamation was issued dividing the territory into judicial
districts; the first district, to which Bryant, who arrived 011 the 9th of
April, was assigned, consisting of Vancouver and several counties immediately
south of the Colum­bia; the second, consisting of the remaining counties in the
Willamette Valley, to which Pratt was assigned; and the third the county of
Lewis, or all the country north of the Columbia and west of Vancouver county,
including the Puget Sound territory, for which there was no judge then
appointed.9 The June election gave Oregon a bona fide delegate to
congress, chosen by the people, of whom we shall know more presently.

When the governor
reached his capital lie found that several commissions, which had been intended
to overtake him at St Louis or Leavenworth, but which failed, had been
forwarded by Lieutenant Beale to California, and thence to Oregon City. These
related to the Indian department, appointing as sub-Indian agents J. Q.
Thornton, George C. Preston, and Robert Newell,10 the Abernethy
delegate being re­warded at last with this unjudicial office by a relenting
president. As Preston did not arrive with his com­mission, the territory was
divided into two districts,

and Thornton assigned
by the governor to the north of the Columbia, while Nowell was given the
country south of the river as his district. ' This arrangement sent Thornton to
the disaffected region of Puget Sound. On the 30th of July he proceeded to Nis-
qually, where he was absent for several weeks, ob­taining the information which
was embodied in the report of the superintendent, concerning the numbers and
dispositions of the different tribes, furnished to him by Tolmie.11
While on this mission, during which he visited some of the Indians and made
them small presents, he conceived it his duty to offer a reward for the
apprehension of the principal actors in the affair at Nisqually, nearly equal
to the amount paid by Ogden for the ransom of all the captives after the
W&iilatpu massacre, amounting to nearly five hundred dollars. This
assumption of authority roused the ire of the governor, who probably ex­pressed
himself somewhat strongly, for Thornton re­signed, and as Newell shortly after
went to the gold mines the business of conciliating and punishing the Indians
again devolved upon the governor.

On the lGtli of July
the first territorial legislative assembly met at Oregon City. According to the
act establishing the government, the legislature was organized with nine
councilmen, of three classes, whose terms should expire with the first, second,
and third years respectively; and eighteen members of the house of
representatives, who should serve for one year; the law, however, providing for
an increase in the number of representatives from time to time, in proportion
to the number of qualified voters, until the maximum of thirty should be
reached.12 After the

usual congratulations
Lane, in his message to the legislature,, alluded briefly to the Cayuses, who,
lie promised, should be brought to justice as soon as the rifle regiment then
on its way should arrive. Con­gress would probably appropriate money to pay the
debt, amounting to about one hundred and ninety thousand dollars. He also spoke
of the Wallace affair, and said the murderers should be punished.

His suggestions as to
the wants of the territory were practical, and related to the advantages of
good roads; to a judicious system of revenues; to the re­vision of the loose
and defective condition of the statute laws, declared by the organic act to be
opera­tive in the territory;1* to education and common schools; to
the organization of the militia; to election matters and providing for
apportioning the repre­sentation of counties and districts to the council and
house of representatives, and defining the qualifica­tion of voters, with other
matters appertaining to government. He left the question of the seat of gov­ernment
to their choice, to decide whether it should be fixed by them or at some future
session. He re­ferred with pleasure to the return of many .absentees from the
mines, and hoped they would resume the cultivation of their farms, which from
lying idle would give the country only a short crop, though there was still
enough for home consumption.11 lie

13Lane’s remarks on the law? of the
provisional government were more truthful than flattering, considering what a
number had been simply adopted fi'om the Iowa code. Message i Or. Spectator,
Oct. 4, 1849; 31st Cong., 1st Sets., S. Doc. 52, xiii. 7-12; Tribune Almanac,
1830-51.

11 Patent
Office Mept., 1849, ii. 511-12,

predicted that the
great migration to California would benefit Oregon, as many of the gold-seekers
would re­main on the Pacific coast, and look for homes in the fertile and
lovely valleys of the new territory. And last, but by no means least in
importance, was the reference to the expected donation of land for which the
people were waiting, and all the more anxiously that there was much doubt
entertained of the tenure by which their claims were now held, since the only
part of the old organic law repealed Was that which granted a title to lands.15
He advised them to call the attention of congress to this subject without
delay. In short, if Lane had been a pioneer of 1843 he could not have touched
upon all the topics nearest the public heart more successfully. Hence his imme­diate
popularity was assured, and whatever he might propose was likely to receive
respectful consideration.

The territorial act
allowed the first legislative as­sembly one hundred days, at three dollars a
day, in which to perform its work. A memorial to congress occupied it two
weeks; still, the assembly closed its labors in seventy-sis days,18
having enacted what the Spectator described as a “ fair and respectable code of
laws,” and adopted one hundred acts of the Iowa stat­utes. The memorial set
forth the loyalty of the peo­ple, and the natural advantages of the country,
not forgetting the oft-repeated request that congress, would grant six hundred
and forty acres of land to each actual settler, including widows and orphans;
and that the donations should be made to conform to the claims and improvements
of the settlers; but if congress decided to have the lands surveyed, and to
make grants by subdivisions, that the settler might be permitted to take his
land in subdivisions as low as twenty acres, so as to include his improvements,
with­out regard to section or township lines. The govern-

15Or. Gen. Laws, 1S43-9, 60.

16The final adjournment was on the 29th of
September, a recess having been taken to attend to gathering the ripened wheat
in August, there being no other hands to employ in this labor. Deady's Hist.
Or,, MS., 3-5.

ment was reminded
that such a grant had been long expected; that, indeed, congress was
responsible for the expectation, which had caused the removal to Oregon of so
large a number of people at a great cost to themselves; that they were happy to
have effected by such emigration the objects which the government had in view,
and to have been prospective!}7 the pro­moters of the happiness of
millions yet unborn, and that a section of land to each would 110 more than pay
them for their trouble. The memorial asked payment for the cost of the Cayuse
war, and also for an appro­priation of ten thousand dollars to pay the debt of
the late government, which, adopted as a necessity, and weak and inefficient as
it had been, still sufficed to regulate society and promote the growth of whole­some
institutions.17 A further appropriation of twenty thousand dollars
was asked for the erection of public buildings at the seat of government
suitable for the transaction of the public business, which was no more than had
been appropriated to the other territories for the same purpose. A sum
sufficient for the erec­tion of a penitentiary was also wanted, and declared to
be as much in the interest of the United States as of the territory of Oregon.

With regard to the
school lands, sections sixteen and thirty-six, which would fall upon the claims
of some settlers, it was earnestly recommended that congress should pass a law
authorizing the township authorities, if the settlers so disturbed should
desire, to select other lands in their places. At the same time congress was
reminded that under the distribu­tion act, live hundred thousand acres of land
were given to each new state on coming into the union; and the people of Oregon
asked that the territory be allowed to select such lands immediately on the
public

17Congress never paid this debt. In 1862
the state- legislature passed an act constituting the secretary commissioner of
the provincial government debt, and register of the claims of scrip holders. A
report made in 18G4 shows that claims to the amount of $4,574.02 only hail been
proven. Many were never presented.

surveys being made,
and also that a law be passed authorizing the appropriation of said lands to
the support of the common schools.

A military road from
some point on the Columbia below the cascades to Puget Sound was asked for;
also one from the sound to a point on the Columbia, near Walla Walla;18
also one from The Dalles to the Willamette Valley; also that explorations be
made for a road from Bear River to the Humboldt, crossing the Blue Mountains
north of Klamath Lake, and entering the Willamette Valley near Mount Jefferson
and the Santiam Liver. Other territorial and post roads were asked for, and an
appropriation to make improvements at the falls of the Willamette. The usual
official robbery under form of the extinguish­ment of the Indian title, and
their removal from the neighborhood of the white settlements, was unblush­ingly
urged. The propriety of making letters to Oregon subject to the same postage as
letters within the States was suggested. Attention was called to the
difficulties between American citizens and the Puget Sound Agricultural Company
with regard to the extent of the company’s claim, which was a large tract of
country enclosed within undefined and imagi­nary lines. They denied the right of
citizens of the United States to locate on said lands, while the people
contended that the company had no right to any lands except such as they
actually occupied at the time of the Oregon treaty of 184G. The government ■was
requested to purchase the lands rightfully held by treaty in order to put an
end to disputes. The memorial closed by coolly asking for a railroad and
telegraph to the Pacific, though there were not people enough in all Oregon to
make a good-sized country town.19

This document framed,
the business of laying out

18l’ierre C. Pam!mm and Com<;liu= Rogers
explored the Nuqu&lly Pass as early as 1S39, going from Fort Walla Walla to
Fort Nioqually by that route. Or. Spectator, Maj 13, 1.H47.

the judicial
districts was attended to. Having first changed the names of several counties,20
it was decreed that the first judicial district should consist of Clack­amas,
Marion, and Linn; the second district of Ben­ton, Polk, Yamhill, and
Washington; and the third of Clarke, Clatsop, and Lewis. The time for holding
court was also fixed.21

While awating a
donation law an act was passed declaring the late land law in force, and that
any per­son who had complied or should thereafter comply with its provisions
should be deemed in possession to every part of the land within his recorded
boundary, not exceeding six hundred and forty acres. But the same act provided
that no foreigner should be en­titled to the benefits of the law, who should
not have, within six months thereafter, filed his declara­tion of intention to
become a citizen of the United States.22

The new land law
amended the old to make it con­form to the territorial act, declaring that none
but white male citizens of the United States, over eigh­teen years of age,
should be entitled to take claims under the act revived. The privilege of
holding claims during absence from the territory by paying five dollars
annually was repealed; but it was declared not necessary to reside upon the
laud, if the claimant continued to improve it, provided the claimant should not
be absent more than six months. It was also de-

25 The first
territorial legislature changed the name of Champoeg county to Marion; of
Tualatin to Washington, and of Vancouver to Clarke. Or. Spec­tator, Oct. 18th.

21As there wag yet no judge for the third
judicial district, and the time for holding the court in Lewis county had been
appointed for the second Mon­day in May and November, Governor Lone prevailed
upon th'; legislature to attach the county of Lewis to the first judicial
district which was to hold its first session on the first Monday in September,
and to appoint the first Monday in October for holding the district court at
Steilacoom in the county of Lewis. This change was made in order to bring the
trial of the Snoqua limichs in a season of the year when it would be possible
for the court to travel to l’uget Sound.

22‘ During the month of May several hundred
foreigners w'ere naturalized. ’ Honolulu Friend, Oct. 1, 1840. There was a
doubt in the mind of Judge Bryant whether Hawaiian ! could become naturalized,
the law of congrcss being explicit as to negroes and liidians, but not
mentioning Sandwich Islanders.

dared that land
claims should descend to heirs at law as personal property.

An act was passed at
this session which made it unlawful for any negro or mulatto to come Into or
reside in the territory; that masters of vessels bring­ing them should be held
responsible for their conduct, and they should not be permitted to leave the
port where the vessel was lying except with the consent of the master of the
vessel, who should cause them to depart with the vessel that brought them, or
some other, within forty days after the time of their ar­rival. Masters or owners
of vessels failing to observe this law were made subject to fine not less than
five hundred dollars, and imprisonment. If a negro or mulatto should be found
in the territory, it became the duty of any judge to issue a warrant for his
arrest, and cause his removal; and if the same negro or mulatto were twice
found in the territory, he should be fined and imprisoned at the discretion of
the court. This law, however, did not apply to the negroes already in the
territory. The act was ordered published in the newspapers of California.23

The next most
interesting action of the legislative assembly was the enactment of a school
law, which provided for the establishment of a permanent irre­ducible fund, the
interest on which should be divided annually among the districts; but as the
school landtf could not be made immediately available, a tax of two mills was
levied for the support of common schools in the interim. The act in its several
chapters created the offices of school commissioner and directors for each county
and defined their duties; also the duties of teachers. The eighth chapter
relating to the powers of district meetings provided that until the counties
were districted the people in any neighborhood, on ten days’ notice, giveu by
any two legal voters, might call a meeting and organize a district; and the
district

meeting might impose
an ad valorem tax on all taxa­ble property in the district for tlie erection of
school houses, and to defray the incidental expenses of the districts, and for
the support of teachers. All chil­dren between the ages of four and twenty-one
years were entitled to the benefits of public education.24

It is unnecessary to
the purposes of this history to follow the legislature of the first territorial
assembly further. Xo money having been received25 for the payment of
the legislators or the printing of the laws, the legislators magnanimously
waived their right to take the remaining thirty days allowed them, and thus
left some work for the next assembly to do.58

On the 21st of
September the assembly was noti­fied, by a special message from the governor,
of the death of ex-President James K. Polk, the friend of Oregon, and the
revered of the western democracy. As a personal friend of Lane, also, his death
created a profound sensation. The legislature after draping both houses in
mourning adjourned for a week. Pub­lic obsequies were celebrated, and Lane
delivered a highly eulogistic address. Perhaps the admirers of Polk’s
administration and political principles were all the more earnest to do him
honor that his successor

51 Says Buck
in his Enterprise*, MS. 11-12: ‘They had to make the first beginning in schools
in Oregon City, and got up the present school law at the fiisst session in
lh49. It was drawn mostly after the Ohio law, and subsequently amended. F. C.
Beatty taught the first (common) school at Oregon City in

23One of the
members tells us something about the legislators: ‘I have heard somt people say
that the first legislature was better than any one wo have had since. I think
it was as good. It was composed of more substan­tia! men than they have had in
since; men who represented the people better. The second one was probably as
good. The third one met in Salem. It is my impression they had deteriorated a
little; but 1 would not like to say bo, because I waa in the first one. I know
there were no such men in it as go to the legislature new.’ Buck's Enterprises,
MS., 11 ‘ The only difference among members was that each one was ruust partial
to the utate from which he had emigrated, and with the operations of which he
was familiar. This difficulty proved a serious one, and retarded the progress of
business throughout. ’ Or. Spectator, Oct. 18, 1849.

in office was a whig,
with whose appointments they were predetermined not to be pleased. The officers
elected by the legislature were: A. A. Skinner, com­missioner to settle the
Cayuse war debt; Bernard Genoise, territorial auditor; James Taylor, treasurer;
Wm. T. Matlock, librarian; James McBride, superin­tendent of schools; C. M.
Walker, prosecuting attor­ney first judicial district; David Stone, prosecuting
attorney second judicial district; Wilson Blain, public printer; A. L. Lovejoy
and W. W. Buck, commission­ers to let the printing of the laws and journals.
Other offices being still vacant, an act was passed providing for a special
election to bo held in each of the several counties on the third Monday in
October for the election of probate judges, clerks, sheriffs, assessors,
treasurers, school commissioners, and justices of the peace.

As by the territorial
act the governs had no veto power, congress having reserved this right, there
was nothing for him to do at Oregon City; and being accustomed of late to the
stir and incident of military camps he longed for activity, and employed his
time visiting the Indians on the coast, and sending couriers to the Cayuses, to
endeavor to prevail upon them to give up the Waiilatpu murderers.'27
The legislative assembly having in the mean time passed a special act to enable
liim to bring to trial the Snoqualiinichs, and Thornton’s munificent offer of
reward having prompted the avaricious savages to give up to Captain Hill at
Steilacoom certain of their number to be dealt with according to the white
man’s law, Lane had tho satisfaction oi seeing, about the last of September,
the first district court, marshal and jurymen, grand and petit, on the way to
Puget Sound,'28 where the

28 There was
a good deal of feeling op the part of the Hudson's Bay Com­pany concerning
Lane’s course, though according to Tolmie's account, it Truth Telh r, the
Indians were committing hostilities against them aa well as

American population
was still so small that travelling courts were obliged to bring their own
juries.

Judge Bryant provided
for the decent administra­tion of justice by the appointment of A. A. Skinner,
district attorney, for the prosecution, and David Stone for the defence. The
whole company proceeded by canoes and horses to Steilacoom carrying with them
their provisions and camping utensils. Several Indians had been arrested, but
two only,Quallawort, brother of Patkanim, head chief of the Snoqualimichs, and
Kas- sas, another Snoqualimich chief, were found guilty. On the day following
then- conviction they were hanged in the presence of the troops and many of
their own and other tribes, Bryant expressing himself satisfied with the
finding of the jury, and also with the opinion that the attacking party of
Snoqualimichs had designed to take Fort Xisqually, in which attempt, had they
succeeded, many lives would have been lost-.29 The cost of this
trial was §1,899.54, besides eighty blankets, the promised reward for the
arrest and de­livery of the guilty parties, which amounted to $480 more. Many
of the jurymen wTere obliged to travel two hundred miles, and the
attorneys also, each of whom received two hundred and fifty dollars for his
services. Notwithstanding this expensive lesson the same savages made away in
some mysterious manner with one or the artillerymen from Fort Stoilacoom the
following winter.30

against the
Americans. Roberts says that v. hen Lane was returning from the Sound in June,
he, Roberts, being at the Cowlitz farm, rode out tu meet him, and answered his
inquiries concerning the best way of preserving the peace of the country, then
changing from the old regime to the new. I -was astonished,’ says Roberts, to
hear him remark “Damn them ! (the Indians) it would do my soul good to be after
them.'’ This ■would
never have, escaped the lips of Dr McLoughlin or Douglas.’
Recollections, MS., 15. There was always this rasping of the rude outspoken
western sentiment on the feelings of the studiously trained Hudson’s Lay
Company. But an Indian to them was a different creature from the Indian toward
whom the settlers were hostile. In the one cast) he was a means of making w
ealth; in the other o* destroying property and life. Could the Hudson’s Bay
Company have ciianged places with the settlers they might have changed feelings
too

The arrest of the
Cayuse murderers could not pro­ceed until the arrival of the mounted rille
regiment then en route, under the command of Brevet-Colonel W. W. Loring.31
This regiment which was provided expressly for service in Oregon and to
garrison posts upon the emigrant road, by authority of a congressional act
passed May 19, 184G, was not raised till the spring of 1847, and was then
ordered to Mexico, although the secretary of war in his instructions to the gov­ernor
of Missouri, in which state the regiment was formed, had said that a part if
not the whole of it would be employed in establishing posts on the route to
Oregon.32 Its numbers beiug greatly reduced dur­ing the Mexican
campaign, it was recruited at Fort Leavenworth, and at length set out upon its
march to the Columbia in the spring of 1849. On the 10th of May the regiment
left Fort Leavenworth with about COO men, thirty-one commissioned officers,
several women and children, the usual train agents, guides, and teamsters, 160
wagons, 1,200 mules, 700 horses, and subsistence for the march to the Pacific.83

Laramie, with, two
companies, under Colonel Benja­min Roberts; and another at Cantonment Loring,
three miles above Fort Hall,31 on Snake River, with an equal number
of men under Major Simonson, the command being transferred soon after to
Colonel Porter.85 The report made by the quartermaster is an account
of discomforts from rains which lasted to the Rocky Mountains; of a great
migration to the California gold mines36 where large numbers died of
cholera, which dread disease invaded the military camps also to some extent ;
of the almost entire worth­lessness of the teamsters and men engaged at Fort
Leavenworth, who had no knowledge of their duties, and were anxious only to
reach California; of the loss by death and desertion of seventy of the late re­cruits
to the regiment;37 and of the loss of property and life in no way
different from the usual experience of the annual emigrations.33

It was designed to
meet the rifle regiment at Fort Hall, with a supply train, under Lieutenant G.
W. Hawkins who was ordered to that post/9 but Hawkins

35Steele says that Simonson was arrested
for some dereliction of duty, and came to Vancouver in this situation; also
that Major Crittenden was arrested on the way for drunkenness. Rifle Regiment,
MS., 2.

3,1 On
reaching The Dalles, the means of transportation to Vancouver was found to be ‘
3 Mackinaw boats, 1 yawl, 4 canoes, and 1 whale-boat.’ A raft was constructed
to carry 4 or 5 tons, and loaded with goods chiefly private,

8men being placed on board to manage the
craft. They attempted to run the cascades and six of them were drowned. Or.
Spectator, Oct. 18, 1849. A part of the command with wagons, teams, and riding
horses crossed the Cas­cade Mountains by the Mount Hood road, losing ‘ nearly
two thirds ’ of the broken-down horses on the way. The los» on the journey
amounted to 45 wagons, 1 ambulance, 30 horses, and 295 mules.

39
Applegate’s Views, MS., 49. There were fifteen freight wagons and a herd of
beef cattle in the train. Gen. Joel ralmer acted as guide, the com­pany taking
the southern route. Palmer went to within a few days of Fort Ilall, where
another government train was encountered escorting the customs officer of
California, Gen. Wilson and family, to Sacramento. The gras3 having been eaten
along the Humboldt route by the cattle of the immigration,

missed Loring’s
command, lie having already left Fort Hall when Hawkins arrived. As the
supplies were needed by the companies at the new post they were left there, in
consequence of which those destined to Oregon w~ere in want of certain
articles, and many of the men wrere barefoot and unable to walk, as
their horses were too wTeak to carry them when they ar­rived at The
Dalles.

On reaching their
destination, and finding no accom­modations at Fort Vancouver, the regiment wTas
quar­tered in Oregon City, at a great expense, and to the disturbance of the
peace and order of that moral and temperate community; the material from which
com­panies had been recruited being below the usual stan­dard of enlisted men.'10

The history of the
establishment of the Oregon military posts is not without interest. Under
orders to take command of the Pacific division, General Per- sifer F. Smith
left Baltimore the 24th of November, and New Orleans on the 18th of December
1848, pro­ceeding by the isthmus of Panama, and arriving on the 23d of February
following at Monterey, where wTas Colonel Mason’s liead-quarters.
Smith remained in California arranging the distribution of posts, and the
aftairs of the division generally.

In May Captain Pufus
Ingalls, assistant quarter­master, was directed by Major H. P. Vinton, chief

Palmer was engaged to
conduct this company by the new route from Pit River, opened the previous
autumn by the Oregon gold-seekers. At the crossing of a stream flowing from the
Sierra, one of the party named Brow n shot himself through the arm by accident,
and the limb was amputated by two surgeons of an emigrant company. This
incident detained I'almer in the mountains several weeks at a cabin supposed to
ha\ e been built by some of Lassen's party the year before. A son of Gen.
Wilson and three men re­mained with him until the snow and ice made it
dangerous getting down to the Sacramento Valley, when Brown was left with his
attendants and Palmer went home to Oregon by sea. The unlucky invalid, long
familiarly known as ‘one-armed Brown,’has for many years resided in Oregon, and
has been con­nected with the Indian department and other branches of the public
service. 1‘almer's Wagon Train, MS., 43-8.

*° This is what
Steele says, and also that one of them who deserted, named Riley, was hanged in
San Francisco. Itifie Regiment, MS., 7.

of the
quartermaster’s department of the Pacific divis­ion, to proceed to Oregon and
make preparations for the establishment of posts in that territory. Taking
passage on the United States transport Anita, Cap­tain Ingalls arrived at
Vancouver soon after Hatha­way landed the artilleymen and stores at that place.
The Anita was followed by the Walpole with two years’ supplies; but the vessel
having been chartered for Astoria only, and the stores landed at that place, a
difficulty arose as to the means of removing them to Vancouver, the transfer
being accomplished at great labor and expense in small river craft. When the
quatermaster began to look about for material and men to construct barracks for
the troops already in the territory and those expected overland in the autumn,
he found himself at a loss. Mechanics and laboring men were not to be found in
Oregon, and Captain Ingalls employed soldiers, paying them a dollar a day extra
to prepare timber from the woods and raft lumber from the fur-company’s mill to
build quarters. Put even with the assistance of Chief Factor Ogden in procuring
for him Indian labor, and placing at his disposal horses, bateaux, and sloops,
at moderate charges, he was able to make but slow progress.41 Of the
buildings occupied by the artillery two belonged to the fur company, having
received alterations to adapt them to the purposes of bar­racks and mess-rooms,
while a few small tenements also owned by the company42 were hired
for offices and for servants of the quarter-master’s department.

It was undoubtedly
believed at this time by both

11Vinton, in 31st Cong., ZdSess., S. Doc.
1, pt. ii. 263. Congress passed in September I860 an act appropriating £325,854
to meet the unexpected outlay occasioned by the rise in prices of labor and
army subsistence in California and Oregon, as well as extra pay demanded by
military officers.

8oeU. S.
ids and Res., 1800, 122-3.

42lu the testimony taken in the settlement
of the Hudson's Bay Com­pany’s claims, page 186, U. S. Ev., II. B. Co. Claims,
Gray deposed that the U. S. troops did not occupy the buildings of the company
but remained in camp until they had erected buildings for their own use. This
is a misstate­ment, as the reports of the quarter-masters Vinton and Ingalls
show, in Slut Cony., 2d Sess., S. Doc. 1., pt. ii. 123, 285.

tlic Hudson’s Bay
Compay and the officers of the United States in Oregon, that the government
would soon purchase the possessory right of the company, which was a reason, in
addition to the eligibility of the situation, for beginning an establishment at
Van­couver. This view was entertained by both Vinton43 and Ogden.
There being at that time no title to land in any part of the country except the
possessory title of the fur company under the treaty of 1846, and the mission
lands under the territorial act, Vancouver was in a safer condition, it might
be thought, with regard to rights, than any other point ; rights which Hathaway
respected by leasing the company’s lands for a military establishment, while
the subject of purchase by the United States government was in abeyance. And
Ogden, by inviting him to take pos­session of the lands claimed by the company,
not in­closed, may have believed this the better manner of preventing the
encroachments of squatters. At all events, matters proceeded amicably between
Hatha­way and Ogden during the residence of the former at Vancouver.

The same state of
tenancy existed at Fort Steila- coom where Captain Hill established himself
August 27th, on the claim of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, at a place
formerly occupied by a farmer or herdsman of the company named Heath.14
Tolmie pointed out this location, perhaps with the same views entertained by
Ogden, being more willing to deal with the officers of the government than with
squatters.

On the 28th of
September General Smith arrived in Oregon, accompanied by Vinton, with the
purpose of examining the country with reference to the loca­tion of military
posts; Theodore Talbot being ordered to examine the coast south of the
Columbia, looking

for harbors and
suitable places for light-houses and defences.45 The result of these
examinations was the approval of the selections of Vancouver and Steila- coom.
Of the ■“
acquisition of the rights and prop­erty reserved, and guaranteed by the terms
of the treaty,” Smith spoke with the utmost respect
for the claims of the companies, saying they were specially confirmed by the
treaty, and that the public interest de­manded that the government should
purchase them,46 a sentiment which the reader is aware was not in
accord with the ideas of a large class in Oregon.

It had been
contemplated establishing a post on the upper Willamette for the protection of
companies travelling to California, but the danger that every soldier would
desert, if placed directly on the road to the gold mines, caused Smith to
abandon that idea. He made arrangements, instead, for Hathaway’s com­mand to
remove to Astoria as early in the spring as the men could work in the forest,
cutting timber for the erection of the required buildings, and for station­ing
the riflemen, at Vancouver and The Dalles, as well as recommending the
abandonment of Fort Hall, or Cantonment Loring, owing to the climate and unpro­ductive
nature of the soil, and the fact that *mmi- grants Avere taking a more
southerly route than formerly. Smith seemed to have the welfare of the
territory at heart, and recommended to the govern­ment many things which the
people desired, among others fortifications at the mouth of the Columbia, in
preparation for which he marked off reservations at Cape Disappointment and
Point Adams. He also suggested the survey of the Iloguo, Umpqua, Alseya,
Yaquina, and Siletz rivers, and Shoal water Bay; and the erection of
light-houses at Cape Disappointment, Cape Flattery, and Protection Island,
representing that it was a military as well as commercial necessity,

the safety of troops
and stores which must usually be transported by sea requiring these guides to
navi­gation. He recommended the survey of a railroad to the Pacific, or at
least of a wagon road, and that it should cross the Rocky Mountains about
latitude 38°, deflect to the Humboldt Valley, and follow that direc­tion until
it should send off a branch to Oregon by way of the Willamette Valley, and
another by way of the Sacramento Valley to the bay of San Francisco.47

Before the plans of
General Smith for the distribu­tion of troops could be carried out, one hundred
and twenty of the riflemen deserted in a body, with the intention of going to
the mines in California. Gov­ernor Lane immediately issued a proclamation for­bidding
the citizens to harbor or in any way assist the runaways, which caused much
uneasiness, as it was said the people along their route were placed in a
serious dilemma, for if they did not sell them provi­sions they would be
robbed, and if they did, they would be punished. The deserters, however, having
organized with a full complement of officers, travelled faster than the
proclamation, and conducted them­selves in so discreet a manner as to escape
suspicion, imposing themselves upon the farmers as a company sent out on an
expedition by the government, getting beef cattle on credit, and receiving
willing aid instead of having to resort to force.

Before leaving
California Smith had ordered an exploration of the coun­try on the southern
lioundary of Oregon for a practicable emigrant and mili­tary road, and also for
a railroad pass about that latitude, detailing Captain W. II. Warner of the
topographical engineers, with an escort of the second infantry under
Lieutenant-Colonel Casey. They left Sacramento in August, and examined the
country for several weeks to the east of the head-waters of the Sacramento,
coming upon a pass in t.ie Sierra Nevada with an elevation of not more than 38
feet to the mile. Warner explored the country east and north of Goose Lake, but
in returning through the mountains by another route was killed by the Indians
before completing ht work. His name was given to a mountain range from this
circumstance. Francis Bercier, the guide, and George Cave were also killed.
Lieut. R. S. Williamson of the expedition made a report in favor of the Pit
River route. See 81st Cong., 1st Sess., Sen. Doe, 2, 17-22, 47.

But tlieir
success,like their organization, was of brief duration. Colonel Loring and the
governor went in pursuit and overtook one division in the Umpqua Valley, whence
Lane returned to Oregon City about the middle of April with seventy of them in
charge. Loring pursued the remainder as far as the Klamath Biver, where
thirty-five escaped by making a canoe and crossing that stream before they were
overtaken. He returned two weeks after Lane, with only seven­teen of the
deserters, having suffered much hardship in the pursuit. He found the fugitives
in a miserable plight, the snow on the Cascade Mountains being still deep, and
their supplies entirely inadequate to such an expedition, for which reason some
had already started on their return. Indeed, it was rumored that several of
those not accounted for had already died of starvation.43 How many
lived to reach the mines was never known.

Great discontent
prevailed among all the troops, many of whom had probably enlisted with no
other intention than of deserting when they reached the Pacific coast. Several
civil suits were brought by them in the district court attempting to prove that
they had been enlisted under false promises, which were decided against them by
Judge Pratt, vice Bry­ant, who was absent from the territory when the suits
came on.50

Later in the spring
Hathaway removed his artillery company to Astoria, and went into encampment at
Fort George, the place being no longer occupied by the fur company. A reserve
was declared of certain lands covered by the improvements of settlers, among
whom were Shively, McClure, Hensill, Ingalls, and Marlin, for which a price was
agreed upon or allowed.51

51Ingalls remarked concerning this
purchase: ‘I do not believe that any of them had the slightest right to a foot
of the soil, consequently no right to have erected improvements' there.’
Whether he meant to day that no one

Here the troops had a
free and easy life, seeing mucli of the gold hunters as they went and came in
the numerous vessels trading betweeu San Fran­cisco and the Columbia River, and
much too of the most degraded population in Oregon, both Indian and white. A
more ill-selected point for troops, even for artillery, could not have been hit
upon, except in the event of an invasion by a foreign power, in which case they
were still too far inside the capes to prevent the enemy’s vessels from
entering the river. They were so far from the real enemy dreaded by the people
it was intended they should defend—the interior tribes of Indians—that much
time and money would bo required to bring them where they could be of service
in case of an outbreak, and after two years the place was abandoned.

The mounted riflemen,
being transferred to Van­couver, whither the citizens of the Willamette saw
them depart with a deep sense of satisfaction,62 cele­brated their
removal by burning their old quarters.53 At their new station they
were employed in building barracks on the ground afterward adopted as a mili­tary
reservation by the government.

The first reservation
declared was that of Miller Island, lying in the Columbia6* about
five miles above Vancouver. It contained about four square miles, and was used
for haymaking and grazing purposes, in con­nection with the post at that place.
This reserve was made in February 1850. No reservation was declared

hail a-right to build
houses in Oregon except military officers, or that the ground belonged to the
Hudson’s Bay Company, I am unable to determine from the record. See SSd Cong.,
Sid Sess., 11. Ex. Doc. 1, i. pt. ii. 123.

52Says the Spectator, Nov. L, 1849, ‘the
abounding drunkenness in our streets is something new under the sun,’and
suggests that the officers do something to abate the evil. But the officers
were seldom sober themselves, Hathaway even attempting suicide while suffering
from mania a yotu. Id., April 18, 1850.

yi Strong's Hist.
Or., MS., 3.

64 Much
trouble had been experienced in procuring grain for the horses of the mounted
troops; only 0,000 buslielsof oats being obtainable, and 100 tons of hay, owing
to the neglect of farming this year. It was only by putting the sol­diers to
haymaking on the lowlands of the Columbia that the stock of the regiment was
provided for; hence, no doubt, the reservation of Miller Island.

at Vancouver til!
October 31st of that year, or until it was ascertained that the government was
not pre­pared to purchase without examining the claims of the Hudson’s Bay
Company. On the date mentioned Colonel Loring, i'i command of the department,
pub­lished a notice that a military reservation had been made for the
government of four miles square, “com­mencing where a meridian line two miles
west from the ilag-staff at the military post near Vancouver, 0. T., strikes
the north bank of the Columbia River, thence due north on said meridian four
miles, thence due east four miles, thence south to the bank of the Columbia
River, thence down said bank to the place of beginning.5’®5
The notice declared that the reserve was made subject alone to the lawful
claims of the Hudson’s Bay Company, as guaranteed under the treaty of 1846, but
promised payments for improve­ments made by resident settlers within the
described limits, a board of officers to appraise the property.

This large reserve
was, as I have before indicated, favorable to the British company’s claims, as
the oidy American squatter on the land was Amos M. Short, the history of whose
settlement at Vancouver is given in the first volume of my History of Oregon.
[Short took no notice of the declaration of reserve/8 think­ing
perhaps, and with a show of justice, that in this case he was trespassed upon,
inasmuch as there was plenty of land for government reservations, which did not
include improvements, or deprive a citizen of his choice of a home. He remained
upon the laud, con­tinuing to improve it, until in 1853 the government
restricted the military reservations to one mile square, which left him outside
the limits of this one.

"''Short had
“hot and killed Dr D. Gardner, and a Hawaiian in hia service, for treapass, i
the Hpring of 1850. He was examined and acquitted, of all of which Colonel
Loring must have lieen aware. Or. Spectator, April 18, 1850; Id., May 2, 1S50.
He was himself regarded as a, trespasser by the fur com­pany. U. S. Ev.
Hudson’s Bay Company Claims, 90.

The
probate court of Clarke county made an appli­cation for an injunction against
Loring and Ingalls at the first term of the United States district court held
at Vancouver, beginning the 29th of October 1850, to stop the further erection
of buildings for military pur­poses on land that was claimed as the county
seat. The attorney for the United States denied that the legislative assembly
had the power to give lands for county seats, did the territorial act permit
it, or that the land could be taken before it was surveyed; and declared that
the premises were reserved by order of the war department, which none might
gainsay.57 The court sustained the opinion. At a later
period a legal contest arose between the heirs of A. M. Short and the Catholic
missionaries. The military reserva­tion, however, of one mile square, remains
to-day the same as in 1853.

On the 13th of May
Major Tucker left Vancouver with two companies of riflemen to establish a
supply post at The Dalles.63 The officers detached for that station
were Captain Claiborne, Lieutenants Lindsay, May, and Ervine, and Surgeon C. H.
Smith. A reservation of ten miles square was made at this place, and the troops
employed in erecting suitable store-houses and garrison accommodations to make
this the head-quarters for the Indian country in the event of hostilities. Both
the Protestant and Cath­olic missions were found to be abandoned,59
though the claims of both were subsequently revived, which together with the
claim of the county seat of Wasco county occasioned lengthy litigation. The
military reservation became a fourth factor in an imbroglio out of which the
Methodist missionary society, through

67 The
solicitor for the complanants in this case was W. W. Chapman; the attorney for
the U. S., Amory Holbrook. The decision was rendered by Judge AVillia .n Strong
in favor of the defendants Or. Spectator, Nov. 7, 1850.

its agents
in Oregon and in Washington, continued to extort money from the government and
individuals for many years. Of The Dalles claim, as a case in chancery, I shall
speak further on in my work.

As if Astoria,
Vancouver, and The Dalles were not enough of Oregon’s eligible town sites to
condemn for military purposes, Loring declared another reservation in the
spring of 1850 upon the land claims of Meek and Duelling at Milwaukie, for the
site of an arsenal. This land was devoted to the raising of fruit trees, a most
important industry in a new country, and one which was progressing well. The
appropriation of property which the claimants felt the government was pledged
to confirm to them if they desired, was an encroachment upon the rights of the
founders of American Oregon which they were quick to resent, and for which the
Oregon delegate in congress was instructed to find a remedy. And he did find a
remedy. The complainants held that they preferred fighting their own Indian
wars to submitting to mili­tary usurption, and the government might withdraw
the ritle regiment at its earliest convenience. All of which was a sad ending
of the long prayer for the military protection of the parent government.

And all
the while the Cayuse murderers went un­punished. Lane was enough of a military
man to understand the delays incident to the circumstances under which Loring
found himself in a new country with undisciplined and deserting troops, but he
was also possessed of the fire and energy of half a dozen regular army
colonels. But before he had received any assistance in procuring the arrest of
the Indians, he had unofficial information of his removal by the whig
administration, which succeeded the one by which he was appointed.

This
change, though eagerly seized upon by some as a means of gaining places for
themselves and secur­ing the control of public affairs, was not by any moans

INDIAN AGENT.

03

agreeable
to tlie majority of the Oregon people. No sooner liad the news been received
than a meeting was held in Yamhill precinct for the purpose of ex­pressing
regret at the removal of General Lane from the office of governor.61
The manner in which Lane had discharged his duties as Indian agent, as well as
executive, had won for him the confidence of the peo­ple, with whom the dash,
energy, and democratic frankness of his character were a power and a charm.
There was nothing that was of importance to any in­dividual of the community
too insignificant for his attention; and whether the interest lie exhibited was
genuine, whether it was the suavity of the politician, or the irrepressible
activity of a true nature, it was equally effective to make him popular with
all but the conservative element to be found in any commu­nity, and which was
represented principally in Oregon by the Protestant religious societies. Lane
being a Catholic could not be expected to represent them.61

As no
official notice of his removal had been re­ceived, Governor Lane proceeded
actively to carry into execution his plans concerning the suppression of Indian
hostilities, which were interrupted tem­porarily by the pursuit of. the
deserting riflemen.

J
>aring his absence on this self-imposed duty a diffi­culty occurred with the
Chinooks at the mouth of the, Columbia, in which, in the absence of established
courts in that district, the military authorities were called upon to act. It
grew out of the murder of Will­iam Stevens, one of four passengers lost from
the brig Forrest while crossing the bar of the Columbia. Three of the men were
drowned. Stevens escaped alive but

61It is told to me by the person in ■w hose
interest it was done, that Lane, while governor, permitted himself to be chosen
arbitrator in a land-jumping ease, and rode a long distance in the rain, having
to cross swollen streams on horseback, to help a woman whose husband was absent
in the mines to resist the attempt of an unprincipled tenant to hold the claim
of her husband. Ilia influence was sufficient with the jury to get the
obnoxious tenant removed.

exhausted
to the shore, where the Chinooks murdered him, Jones, of' the rifles, who was
at Astoria with a small company, hearing of it wrote to the governor and his
colonel, saying that if he had men enough he would take the matter in hand at
once; hut that the Indians were excited over the arrest of one of the
murderers, and he feared to make matters worse by attempting without a
sufficient force to apprehend all the guilty Indians. On receiving the
information, Secretary Pritchett called for aid on Hathaway, who sent a company
to Astoria to make the arrest of all persons suspected of being concerned in
the murder;62 but by this time the criminals had escaped.

Negotiations
had been in progress ever since the arrival of Lane for the voluntary delivery
of the guilty Cayuses by their tribe, it beiug shown them that the only means
by which peace and friendship could ever be restored to their people, or they
be permitted to occupy their lands and treat with the United States government,
was the delivery of the Whitman mur­derers to the authorities of Oregon for
trial.e3 At length word was received that the guilty members of the
tribe, who were not already dead, would be sur­rendered at The Dalles. Lane
went in person to receive them, escorted by Lieutenant Addison with a guard of
ten men. Five of the murderers, Tiloukaikt, Tamahas, Klokamas, Isaiachalakis,
and Kiamasump- kin, were found to be there with others of their people. They
consented to go to Oregon City to be tried, offer­ing fifty horses'for their
successful defence.04

The
journey of the prisoners, who took leave of their friends with marked emotion,
was not without interest to their escort, who, anxious to understand the

62Or. Spectator, March 21, ancl April
i. 1850.

t;; Lane’s
Autobiography, MS., OG.

64 Blanchet
assorts that the Cayuses consented only to come down and have a talk with the
white authorities, anil denies that they were the actual criminals, who he Raja
were all dead, having been killed by the volunteers. C'ath. Oh. in Or., 180.
There appears to bo nothing to justify such a state­ment, except that tho
murderers submitted to receive the consolations of the church in their last
moments.

tnotives
which had actuated the Indians in surrender­ing themselves, plied them with
questions at every opportunity. Tiloukaikt answered with a singular mingling of
savage pride and Christian humility. When offered food by the guard from their
own mess he regarded it with scorn. '‘What hearts have you,” he demanded, “to
offer to eat with me, whose hands are red with your brother’s blood?” When
asked why he gave himself up, he replied: “Did not your missionaries teach us
that Christ died to save his people? So die we to save our people.”

This
apparent magnanimity produced a deep impres­sion on some minds, who, not well
versed in Indian or in any human character, could not divest themselves of awe
in the presence of such evidences of moral greatness as these mocking answers
evinced.

The facts
are these: The Cayuses, weary of wan­dering, with the prospect before them of
another war with white men, had prevailed upon those who among themselves had
done most to bring so much wretched­ness upon them, to risk their lives in
restoring them to their former peace and prosperity. Doubtless the
representations which had been made, that they would be defended by white
counsel, had had its influence in inducing them to take the risk. At all events
it was a case requiring a desperate remedy. They were not ignorant that between
twenty and thirty thousand Americans, chiefly men, and several government expe­ditions
had traversed the road to the Pacific the year previous; nor that their attempt
to expel the few white people from the Walla Walla valley had been an igno­minious
failure. There was scarcely a chance that white men’s laws would acquit them;
but on the other hand there was the apparent certainty that unless the few gave
up their lives, all must perish. Could a chief face his people whom he had
ruined without an effort to save them ? All that was courageous or manly in the
savage breast was roused by the emergency; and who shall say that this pride,
which doggedly accepted

a terrible
alternative, did not make a moral hero, or present an example equivalent to
the. average Chris­tian self-sacrifice?

The trial
was set for the 22d of May. The pris­oners in the meantime were confined on
Abemethy island, in the midst of the falls, the bridge connect­ing it with the
mainland being guarded by Lieutenant Lane, of the rifles, who was assigned to
that duty.65 The prosecution was conducted by Amory Holbrook,
district attorney, who had arrived in the territory in March previous, and the
defense by Secretary Pritchett, P. B. Reynolds, of Tennessee, paymaster of the
rifle regiment, and Captain Claiborne, also of the rifle, whom Judge Pratt
assigned to this duty.

On
arraignment, the defendants, through Knitzing Pritchett, secretary of the
territory, one of their counsel, entered a special plea to the jurisdiction of
the court, alleging that at the date of the massacre the laws of the United
States had not been extended over Oregon. The ruling of the court was that the
act of congress, June 30, 1834. regulating trade and intercourse with the
Indian tribes and to preserve peace on the frontiers, having declared ail the
terri­tory of the United States west of the Mississippi and not within any
state, to be within the Indian country; and the treaty of June 15, 1846, with
Great Britain having settled that, all of Oregon south of the 49th parallel
belonged exclusively to the United States, it followed that offenses committed
therein, after such treaty, against the laws of the United States, were tri­able
and punishable in the proper United States courts irrespective of the date of
their establishment. The indictment stated facts sufficient to show that a
crime had been committed under the laws in force at the place of its
commission, and therefore the subsequent creation of a court in which a
determination of the question of the defendant’s guilt or innocence could

a Lanf's
Autolioyraphy, MS., 139,

be had was
immaterial, and could not affect its juris­diction. Exception to the ruling was
taken.

The trial proceeded
and the defendants were con­victed, sentenced, and ordered by a warrant, signed
by the j udge, to be hung ; the day set for the execu­tion being June the 3d. A
new trial was asked for and denied. Between the time of conviction and the day
fixed for execution, the governor being absent from the capital, it was rumored
that he was at the mines near Yreka, in California, and acting upon this rumor,
Pritchett, counsel for the Indians and secre­tary of the territory, announced
that he should, as governor, reprieve the Indians from execution until an
appeal could be taken and heard by the supreme court at Washington. The people
generally expressed great indignation at even the suggestion of such a course.
While the excitement was at its height, Meek, United States marshal, called
upon the judge for instructions how to act in the event that Pritchett should
interfere to prevent the execution. Judge Pratt promptly answered that as there
was no actual or official evidence that Governor Lane Avas outside of the
territorial limits, all assumptions of Pritchett to that effect and acts based
upon them could be disregarded, The sec­retary having learned of these views of
the judge did not interfere, the execution took place, and general rejoicing
followed.66

The solemnity and
quiet of religious services char­acterized the entire trial, at which between
four and five hundred persons were present, who watched the proceedings with
intense anxiety. Counsel appointed by- the judge made vigorous effort to clear
their clients. No one unfamiliar with the condition of

C5General
Lucius II. Allen, a graduate of the United States military academy, and early
identified with Oregon, and later with California, who deceasetl in the latter
state in 1888, and a ram of high character, dictated to Col George H. Morrison
for my use the full particulars of this interesting trial. General Allen said,
if by any chance the Indians had escaped execu­tion, the people would
undoubtedly have hung them, which act on the part of the people would have
caused retaliation by the Indians, and the situation would have been dreadful,
and beyond the power of language to describe.

His* Ob., Vol. II. 7

affairs in
the territory of Oregon at the time of which I am writing, can realize the
interest displayed by the people of the entire country in this important and
never-to-be-forgotten trial. The bare thought that the five wretches that had
assassinated Doctor Whit­man, Mrs Whitman, Mr Saunders, and a large num­ber of
emigrants, might, bjr any technicality of the law, be allowed to go
unpunished, was sufficient to disturb every man, woman, and child throughout
the length and breadth of the territorial limits.67

The judge
appreciated, in all its seriousness, the responsibility of his position. He
seemed to realize that upon his decision hung the lives of thousands of the
whites inhabiting the Willamette valley. He proved, however, equal to the
emergency. His knowledge of the law was not only thorough, but during his early
Lfe, and before having been called to the bench in Oregon he had become
familiar with all the questions Involving territorial boundaries and treaty
stipulations. His position was dignified, firm, and fearless. His charge was
full, logical, and concise.

His
judicial action in this and many other trials of a criminal and civil nature in
the territory during his judgeship, made it manifest to the great body of the
early settlers that he was not only thoroughly versed in all the needed learning
required m his position, but, in addition, his unswerving determination that
the law should be upheld and enforced created general con­fidence and reliance
that he would be equal to his position in all emergencies.

The result
of the conviction of the Indians was felt throughout the territory, and gave
satisfaction to all classes. It was said by many that the Catholics68
were privy to this dastardly and dreadful massacre ; this, 1 do not believe,
nor have I found in my researches evidence upon which to base such an
assertion. C'J It was

Q Oregon
Sptctntor.

“ Blanche t'» attempt
to excuse his neophytes 13 open to rcproach.

69 Meek
seems to have had the erroneous impression that the gov signed the death
warrant, and id quoted as having said, ‘I have in

even feared that a
rescue might be attempted by the Indians 011 the day of execution, and men
coming in from the country round brought their rifles, hiding them in the
outskirts of the town, not to create alarm.70 Nothing occurred,
however, to cause excite­ment. The Catholic priests took charge of the spir­itual
affairs of the condemned savages, administering the sacraments of baptism and
confirmation, Father "Veyret attending them to the scaffold, where prayers
for the dying were offered. “ Touching words of en­couragement,” says Blanchet,
“ were addressed to them on the moment of being swung into the air: ‘Onward,
onward to heaven, children; into thy hands, 0 Lord Jesus, I commend my
spirit.’”71 Oh loving and consistent Christians! While the Avorld of
Prot­estantism regarded the victims slain at Waiilatpu as martyrs, the priests
of Catholicism made martyrs of the murderers, and wafted their spirits straight
to heaven. So far as the sectarian quarrel is concerned it matters nothing, in
my opinion, and I care not whose converts these heathen may have been, if of
either; but sure I am that these Cayuses were mar­tyrs to a destiny too strong
for them, to the Jugger­naut of an incompressible civilization, before whose
wheels they were compelled to prostrate themselves, to that relentless law',
the survival of the fittest, be­fore which, in spite of religion or science, we
all in turn go down.

With the consummation
of the last act of the Cayuse tragedy Lane’s administration may be said to have
closed, though he was for several weeks occupied with his duties as Indian
agent in the south, a full account of which I shall give later. Having made a

tny pocket the
death-warrant of them Indians, signed by Governor Lpno. The marshal will
execute them men as curtain as the day arrives. ’ Pritchett looked surprised
and remarked: ‘That is not what you just said, that you would do anything fur
me.’ ‘ You were talking then to Meek,’ Joe returned, ‘not to the marshal, who
always does his duty.’ Victor's River of the ) Vest, 496. The marshal's honor
was less corrupt than his grammar.

,c Bacon’s
Merc. Life Or., MS., 25.

71 Cath. Ch.
in Or., 182.

treaty with the Rogue
River people, he went to Cal­ifornia and busied himself with gold mining until
the spring of 185], when liis friends and admirers recalled him to Oregon to
run for delegate to congress. About the time of his return the rifle regiment
departed to return by sea to Jefferson barracks, near St Louis, having been
reduced to a mere remnant by deser­tions,72 and never having rendered
any service of im­portance to the territory.

The Early
Judiciary—Island Mills—Arrival of William Strong— Opposition to the Hudson’s
Bat Company—Arrest of British Ship Captains—George Gibbs—The ‘Albion’
Affair—Samuel R. Tiiurs- ton Chosen Delegate to Congress—His Life and
Character—Pro­ceeds to Washington—Misrepresentations and Unprincipled
Measures—Rank Injustice toward McLoughlin—Efficient Work for Oregon—The
Donation Land Bili.—The Cayuse War Claim and Other Appropriations Secured—The
People Lose Confidence in their Delegate—Death of Thurston.

During the transition period through which the
territory was passing, complaint was made that the judges devoted time to
personal enterprises which was demanded for the public service. I am disposed
to think that those who criticised the judges of the United States courts
caviled because they overlooked the conditions then existing.

The
members of the territorial supreme court were Chief Justice Bryant and
Associate Justice Pratt.1 Within a few months, the chief justice’s
health

1O. C. Pratt was torn April 24, 1819, in
Ontario County, New York. Ho entered West Point, in the class of 1837, and took
two years of the course. His stand during this time was good, but he did not
iind technical military training congenial to his tastes, excepting the higher
mathematics, and ho obtaintd tho consent of his parents to resign liis
cadetship, in order to com­plete his study of law, to which he had devoted two
years previous to enter­ing the Military Academy. He passed his examination
before the supremo court of New York in 1840, and was admitted to the bar.
During this year he took an active part in the presidential campaign a3 an
advocate of the election of Martin Van Buren. In 1843 he moved to Galena,
Illinois, and established himself as an attorney at law. In 1841 he entered
heartily into politics, as a friend of Polk, ami attracted attention by his
cogent discussion of the issues then uppermost, the annexation of Texas, and
the Oregon ques­tion. In 1847 he was a member of the convention to make tho
first revision

(101)

having
become impaired, he left Oregon, returned to Indiana, resigned, and soon after
died. Associate Justice Burnett, being in California, and very lucra­tively
employed at the time that he learned of his appointment, declined it; and as
their successors, Thomas Nelson and William Strong,2 were not soon
appointed, and came ultimately to their field of duty around Cape Horn, Judge
Pratt was left uuaided nearly two years in the judicial labors of the
territory.

By act of
congress, March 3,1859, it was provided, in the absence of I nitcd States
courts in California, viola­tions of the revenue laws might be prosecuted
before the judges of the supreme court of Oregon. U nder this stat­ute, Judge
Pratt went to San Francisco, by request of the secretary of the treasury, in
1849, and assisted in the adjustment of several important admiralty cases.
Also, about the same time, in his own district, at Port­land, Oregon, as
district judge of the United States for the territory of Oregon, he held the
first court of admiralty jurisdiction within the limits of the region now
covered by the states of Oregon and California.

Another
evil to the peace and quiet of the commu­nity, and to the security of property,
arose soon after the advent of the new justices—Strong,3 in August

of tlie constitution,
of Illinois. In the service of the government he crossed the plains to Santa
Fe; thence to California. In 1848 he became a member of the supreme court of
Oregon, as noted. He was a man of striking and distinguished personnel, fine
sensibilities, analytic intelligence, eloquent, learned in the law, and
honorable.

2William Strong was born in St Albans,
Vermont, in 1817, where he re­sided in early childhood, afterward removing to
Connecticut and New York. He was educated at Yale college, began life as
principal of an academy at Ithaca, New York, and followed this occupation while
studying law, remov­ing to Cleveland, Ohio, in the mean time. On being
appointed to Oregon he took passage with his wife on the United States
store-ship Supply in Novem­ber 1849 for San Francisco, and thence proceeded to
the Columbia by the sloop of war Falmouth. Judge Strong resided for a few years
on the north side of the Columbia, but finally made Portland his home, where he
has long practised law in company with his sons. During my visit to Oregon in
1878 Judge Strong, among others, dictated to my stenographer his varied experi­ences,
and important facts concerning the history of Oregon. The manu­script thus made
I entitled Strowfs History of Oregon. It contains a long series of events,
beginning Augusi 1850, and running down to the time when it was given, and is
enlivened by many anecdotes, amusing and curi­ous, of early times, Indiau
characteristics, political affairs, and court notes.

3Strong, who seems to have had an eye to
speculation as well as other of$-

1850, and Nelson, in
April 1, 1851—from the inter­ference of one district court with the processes
of another. Thus it was impossible, for a time, to main­tain order in Judge
Pratt’s district (the second) in two instances, sentences for contempt passed
by him being practically nullified by the interference of the judge of the
first district.

Among the changes
occurring at this time none were more perceptible than the diminishing import­ance
of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s business in Oregon. Not only the gold mania
carried off their servants, but the naturalization act did likewise, and also
the prospect of a title to six hundred and forty acres of land. And not only
did their servants desert them, but the United States revenue officers and Ind­ian
agents pursued them at every turn.4 When Thorn­ton was at Puget
Sound in 1849 he caused the arrest of Captain Morris, of the Ilarpooner, an
English ves­sel which had transported Hill’s artillery company to Nisqually,
for giving the customary grog to the Ind­ians and half-breeds hired to
discharge the vessel in the absence of white labor. Captain Morris was held to
bail in five hundred dollars by Judge Bryant, to appear before him at the next
term of court. What the decision would have been can only be conjectured, as in
the absence of the judges the case never came to trial. Morris was released on
a promise never to return to those waters.5

But these annoyances
were light compared to those which arose out of the establishment of a port of

cials, had purchased
a lot of side-saddles before leaving New York, and other goods at auction, for
sale in Oregon. His saddles cost him $7.50 and $13, and he sold them to women
whose husbands had been to the gold mines for $50, $60, and $75. A gross of
playing cards, purchased for a cent a pack at auc> tion, sold to the
soldiers for $1.50 a pack. Brown sugar purchased for 5c. a pound by the barrel
brought ten times that amount; and so on, the goods being sold for him at the
fur company’s store. Stronjs Hist. Or., MS , 27-30.

^Roberts says, in his
Recollections, MS., that Douglas left Vancouver just in time to save his peace
of mind; and it was perhaps partly with that object, for he was a strict
disciplinarian, and could never have bent to the new order of things.

5Roberts'1 Recollections,
MS., 1C.

entry, and the
extension of the revenue laws of the United States over the country. In
the'spring of 1849 arrived Oregon’s tirst United States revenue ofiicer, John
Adair, of Kentucky; and in the autumn George Gibbs, deputy-collector.6
No trouble seems to have arisen for the first few months, though the company
was subjected to much inconvenience by having to go from Fort Victoria to
Astoria, a distance of over two hundred miles, to enter the goods designed for
the American side of the strait, or for Fort Nis- qually to which they must
travel back three hundred miles.

About the last of
December 1849 the British ship Albion, Captain Richard O. Hinderwell, William
Brotchie, supercargo, entered the strait of Fuca with­out being aware of the i
nited States revenue laws on that part of the coast, and proceeded to cut a
cargo of spars at New Duugeness, at the same time trading with the natives, for
which they were prepared, by permission of the Hudson’s Bay Company in London, with
certain Indian goods, though not allowed to buy furs. The owners of the Albion,
who had a govern­ment contract, had instructed the captain and super­cargo to
take the spars wherever they found the best timber, but if upon the American
side of the strait, to pay for them if they could be bought cheap. But during a
stay of about four months at Dungeness, as

s Gibbs, ho
came with the rifle regiment, was employed in various posi tions on tlie
l’acific coast for several years. He became interested in philology and
published a Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, and other matter concern­ing the
native races, as well as the geography and geology of the west coast. In
Suckley and Cooper’s Natural History it is said that he spent two years in
southern Oregon, near the Klamath; that in 1853 he joined McClellan’s sur­veying
party, and afterward made, explorations with 1. 1. Stevens in Wash­ington. In
1859 he was still employed as geologist of the north-west boundary survey with
Kennerly. He was for a short time collector of customs at Astoria. He went from
there to Puget Sound, where he applied himself to the study of the habits,
languages, and traditions of the natives, which study enabled him to make some
valuable contributions to the Smithsonian Insti­tution Mr Gibbs died at New
Haven, Conn., May 11, 1873. ‘He was a man of fine scholarly attainments, ’ says
the Olympia Pacific Tribune, May 17, 1873, ‘ and ardently devoted to science
and polite literature. He was something of a wag withal, and on several
occasions, in conjunction with the late Lieut. Derby (John I'licenix) and
others, perpetrated “sells” that obtained a world wide publicity. His friends
were many, warm, and earnest.’

ho one had appeared
of whom the timber could be purchased, the wood-cutters continued their work un­interruptedly.
In the mean time the United States surveying schooner Ewing being in the sound,
Lieu­tenant McArthur informed the officers of the Albion that they had no right
to cut timber on American soil. When this came to the ears of deputy-collector
Gibbs, Adair being absent in California, he appointed Eben May Dorr a special
inspector of customs, with authority to seize the Albion for violation of the
revenue laws. United States district attorney Hol­brook, and United States
marshal Meek, were duly informed.

The marshal, wTith
Inspector Dorr, repaired to Steilacoom, where a requisition was made on Cap­tain
Hill for a detachment of men, and Lieutenant Gibson, five soldiers, and several
citizens proceeded down the sound to Dungeness, and made a formal seizure of
the ship anil stores on the 22d of April. The vessel was placed in charge of
Charles Kinney, the English sailors willingly obeying him, and navi­gating the
ship to Steilacoom. Arrived here every man, even to the cook, deserted, and the
captain and supercargo were ordered ashore where they found succor at the
hospitable hands of Tolmie, at Fort Xisqually.

It was not a very
magnanimous proceeding on the part of officers of the great American republic,
but was about what might have been expected from Indian fighters like Joe Meek
raised to new dignities.7 We smile at the simple savage demanding
pay from navi­gators for wood and water; but here were officers of the United
States government seizing and confiscating a British vessel for cutting a few
small trees from

’ See 31st Conq., 2d
Sese., S. Doc., 30, 15-10. ‘We have met before,’ said Brotchie to Meek as the
latter presented himself. ‘You did meet me at Vancouver several years ago, but
I was then nothing but Joe Meek, and you ordered me ashore. Circumstances arc
changed since then. I am Colonel Joseph L. Meek, United States marshal for
Oregon Territory, and you, sir, are only a damned smuggler I Go ashore, sir!’
Victor's Itiver of the West, 505.

land lately stolen
from the Indians, relinquished by Great Britain as much through a desire for
peace as from any other cause, and which the United States government afterward
sold for a dollar and a quarter an acre, at which rate the present damage could
not possibly have reached the sum of three cents!

Kinney proved a
thief, and not only stole the goods intrusted to his care, but allowed others
to do so,8 and was finally placed under bonds for his appearance to
answer the charge of embezzlement. The ship and spars were condemned and sold
at Steilacoom Novem­ber 23d, bringing about forty thousand dollars, which was
considerably less than she was worth; the money, according to common report,
never reaching the treas­ury.9 A formal protest was entered by the
captain and supercargo immediately on the seizure of the Albion, and the whole
correspondence finally came before congress on the matter being brought to the
attention of the secretary of state by the British minister at Washington.

In the mean time
congress had passed an act Sep­tember 28, 1850, relating to collection matters
on the Pacific coast, and containing a proviso intended to meet such cases as
this of the Albion,10 and by virtue of which the owners and officers
of the vessel were indemnified for their losses.

This high-handed
proceeding against the Albion, as we may well imagine, produced much bitterness
of feeling on the part of the British residents north of the Columbia/1
and the more so that the vessels

8 Or.
Spectator, Deo. 10, 1850.

9Thi* money
fell into bad hands and was not accounted foe. According to Meek ‘the officers
of the court’ found a private use for it. Victor’s River of the. West, 506.

10That where any ship or goods may have
been subjected to seizure by any officer of the customs in the collection
district of Upper California or the district of Oregon prior to the passage of
this act, and it shall be mado to appear to the satisfaction of the secretary
of the treasury that the owner sustained loss by reason of any improper
seizure, the said secretary is author­ized to extend such relief as he may deem
just and proper. 31st Cony., l*t Sess., United States Acts and Res., 128-9.

11* 1 fancy I am pretty cool about it
now,’ says Roberts, ‘but then it did rather damp my democracy.’ Rtcollectiuns,
MS., 17.

of the Hudson’s Bay Company
were not exempt from these exactions. When the troops were to be removed from
Nisqually to Stcilacoom on the estab­lishment of that post, Captain Hi1!
employed the Forager, one of the company’s vessels, to transport the men and
stores, and the settlers also having some shingles and other insignificant
freight, which they wished carried down the sound, it was put on board the
Forager. For this violation of the United States revenue laws the vessel was
seized. But the secretary of the treasury decided that Hill and the
artillerymen were not goods in the meaning of the statute, and that therefore
the laws had not been violated.12

Soon after the
seizure of the Albion, the company’s schooner Cadboro was seized for carrying
goods direct from Victoria to Nisqually, and that notwithstanding the duties
were paid, though under protest. The Cadboro was released on Ogden reminding
the col­lector that he had given notice of the desire of the company to
continue the importation of goods direct from Victoria, their readiness to pay
duties, and also that their business would be broken up at Nisqually and other
posts in Oregon if they were compelled to import by the way of the Columbia
River.13

In January 1850
President Taylor declared Port­land and Nisqually ports of delivery; but
subsequently the office was removed at the instance of the ( regon delegate
from Nisqually to Olympia, when there followed other seizures, namely, of the
Mary Dare, and the Beaver, the latter for landing Miss Rose

•• •.O, _

Birme, sister of
James Bii'iiie formerly of Fort George, at Fort Nisqually, without first having
landed her at Olympia.14 The cases were tried before .1 udge Strong,
who very justly released the vessels. Strong was accused of bribery by the
collector; but the friends of the judge held a public meeting at Olympia sus-

taining him. The
seizure cost the government twenty thousand dollars, and caused much
ill-feeling. This was after the appointment of a collector for Puget Sound in
1851, whose construction of the revenue laws was even more strict than that of
other Oregon officials.15

Thus we see that the
position of the Hudson’s Pay Company in Oregon after the passage of the act
establishing the territory was ever increasingly pre­carious and disagreeable.
The treaty of 1846 had proven altogether insufficient to protect the assumed
rights of the company, and was liable to different interpretations even by the
ablest jurists. The com­pany claimed their lands in the nature of a grant, and
as actually alienated to the British government. Before the passage of the
territorial act, they had taken warning by the well known temper of the
American occupants of Oregon toward them, and had offered their rights for sale
to the government at one million of dollars; using, as I have previously inti­mated,
the well known democratic editor and politician, George N. Sanders, as their
agent in Washington.

As early as January
1848 Sir George Simpson addressed a confidential letter to Sanders, whom he had
previously met in Montreal, in which he defined his view of the rights
confirmed by the treaty, as the right to “cultivate the soil, to cut down and
export the timber, to carry on the fisheries, to trade for furs with the
natives, and all other rights we enjoyed at the time of framing the treaty.” As
to the free navi­gation of the Columbia, he held that this right like the
others was salable and transferable. “ Our possessions,” he said, “embrace the
very best situa­tions in the whole country for offensive and defensive
operations, towns and villages.” These were all in*

15S. P. Moses was tho first collector on
Puget Sound. Robert1! says con­cerning him that he ‘ took almost
every British ship that came. His conduct was beneath the government, and
probably was from beneath, also.’ Itecol- kcttciha, MS., 16.

eluded in the offer
of sale, as well as the lands of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, together
with their flocks and herds; the reason urged for making the offer being that
the company in England were apprehensive that their possession of the country
might lead to “endless disputes, which might be pro­ductive of difficulties
between the two nations,” to avoid which they were willing to make a sacrifice,
and to withdraw within the territory north of 49. 18

Sanders laid this
proposition before Secretary Buchanan in July, and a correspondence ensued
between the officers and agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the ministers
of both governments, in the course of which it transpired that the United
States government on learning the construction put upon the company’s right to
transfer the navigation of the Columbia, was dissatisfied with the terms of the
treaty and wished to make a now one in which this right was surrendered, but
that Great Britain declined to relinquish the right w ithout. a considera­tion.
“Her Majesty’s government,” said Addington, “have no proposal to make, they
being quite content to leave things as they are.”

The operation of the
revenue laws, however, which had not been anticipated by the British companies
or government, considerably modified their tone as to the importance of their
right of navigation on the Columbia, and their privileges generally. Instead of
being in a position to dictate terms, they were at the mercy of the United
States, which could well afford to allow them to navigate Oregon waters so long
as they paid duties. Under this pressure, in the spring of 1849, a contract was
drawn up conveying the rights of the company under their charter and the
treaty, and appertaining to forts Disappointment, George, Vancouver, Umpqua,
Walla Walla, Boise, Okanagan, Colville, Kootenai, Flat Head, Nisqually,
Cowlitz, and all other posts belonging to said com-

3lit
Cony., 2d Sess., Sen. Doc. SO, 4-5.

panics, together with
their wild lands, reserving only their shipping, merchandise, provisions, and
stores of every description, and their enclosed lands, except such portions of
them as the United States govern­ment might wish to appropriate for military
reserves, which were included in the schedule offered, for the sum of seven
hundred thousand dollars. The agree­ment further offered all their farms and
real property not before conveyed, for one hundred and fifty thou­sand dollars,
if purchased within one year by the government; or if the government should not
elect to purchase, the companies bound themselves to sell all their farming
lands to private citizens of the United States within two years, so that at the
end of that time they would have no property rights whatever in the territories
of the United States.

Surely it could not
be said that the British com­panies were not as anxious to get out of Oregon as
the Americans were to have them. It is more than likely, also, that had it not
been for the persistent animosity of certain persons influencing the' heads of
the government and senators, some arrangement might have been effected; the
reason given for re­jecting the offer, however, was that no purchase could be
made until the exact limits of the company’s possessions could be determined.
In October 1850, Sir John Henry Pelly addressed a letter to Webster, then
secretary of state, on the subject, in which he referred to the seizure of the
Albion, and in which he said that the price in the disposal of their property
was but a secondary consideration, that they were more concerned to avoid the
repetition of occurrences which might endanger the peace of the two govern­ments,
and proposed to leave the matter of valuation to be decided by two
commissioners, one from each government, who should bo at liberty to call an
umpire. But at this time the same objections existed in the indefinite limits
of the territory claimed which would require to be settled before commissioners

could bo prepared to
decide, and nothing was done then, nor for twenty years afterward,17
toward the purchase of Hudson’s Bay Company claims, during which time their
forts, never of much value except for the purposes of the company, went to
decay, and the lands of the Puget Sound Company were covered with American
squatters, who, holding that the rights of the company under the treaty of 1846
were not in the nature of an actual grant, but merely possessory so far as the
company required the land for use until their charter expired, looked upon
their pretensions as unfounded, and treated them as trespassers,18
at the same time that they were compelled to pay taxes as proprietors.19

Gradually the
different posts were abandoned. The land at Fort Umpqua was let in 1853 to W.
W, Chapman, who purchased the cattle belonging to it,20 which
travellers were in the habit of shooting as

1733d Gong., 1st Se,ss., H. Ex. Doc. 2, pt.
iii 473—1

18Roberts,
who was a stockholder in the Puget Sound Company, took charge of the Cowlitz
farm in 1846. Matters went on very well for two years. Then came the gold
excitement and demoralization of the company’s servants consequent upon it, and
the expectation of a donation land law. He left tlio farm which he found it
impossible to carry on, and took up a land claim as a settler outside its
limits, becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States. But pioneer
farming was not either agreeable or profitable to him, and was besides
interrupted by an Indian war, when he became clerk to the quarter­master
general. When the Frazer River mining excitement came on he thought he might
possibly make something at the Cowlitz by raising provis­ions. But when his hay
as cut and put up in cocks it was taken away by armed men who had squatted on
the land; and when the case oamo into court the jury decided that they knew
nothing about treaties, but did under­stand the rights of American citizens
under the land law. Then followed arson and other troubles with the squatters,
who took away his crops year after year. The lawyers to whom he appealed could
do nothing for him, and it was only by the interference of other people who
became ashamed of seeing . good man persecuted in this manner, that the
squatters on the Cowlitz farm were linally compelled to desist from these acts,
and Roberts was left in peace until the Washington delegate, Garfield, secured
patents for his clients the squatters, and Roberts was evicted. There certainly
should have been some way of preventing outrages of this kind, and the
government should have seen to it that its treaties were respected by the
people. But the peo pie’s representatives, to win favor with their
constituents, persistently helped to instigate a feeling of opposition to the
claims of the British companies, or to create a doubt of their \alidity. See
Roberts’ Recollections, MS., 75.

19 The Puget
Sound Company paid in one year §7,000 in taxes. They were astute enough, says
Roberts, not to refuse, as the records couid be used to show the value of their
property. Recollections, MS., 91.

game wl ile they
belonged to tlie company. Tlio stockade and buildings were burned in 1851. The
land was finally taken as a donation claim. Walla Walla was abandoned in
1S55-G, during the Indian war, in obedience to an order from Indian Agent
Olney, and was afterward claimed by an American for a town site. Fort Boise was
abandoned in 1856 on account of Indian hostilities, and Fort Hall about the
same time on account of the statute against selling

• •__ _.m_
Oo

ammunition to
Indians, without which the Indian trade was worthless. Okanagan was kept up
until 1861 or 18G2, when it wTas left in charge of an Indian chief.
Vancouver was abandoned about I860, the land about it being covered with
squatters, English and American.21 Fort George went out of use
before any of the others, Colville holding out longest. At length in 1871,
after a tedious and expensive ex­amination of the claims of the Hudson’s Bay
and Puget Sound companies by a commission appointed for the purpose, an award
of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars Avas made and accepted, there being
nothing left which the United States could confirm to any one except a dozen
dilapidated forts. The United States gained nothing by the purchase, unless it
were the military reserves at Vancouver, Steila- coom, and Cape Disappointment;
for the broad acres of the companies had been donated to squatters who applied
for them as United States land. As to the justice of the cause of the American
people against the companies, or the companies against the United States, there
will be always tw7o opinions, as there have always been two opinions
concerning the Oregon boundary question. Sentiment on the American side as
enunciated by the Oregon pioneers was as follows: They held that Great Britain
had no rights on the west shore of the American continent; in which opinion, if
they would include the United States in the same category, I would concur. As I
think I

=>/. L.
Male, in V. S. Ev. II. Ii. C. Claims, 90.

liave clearly shown
in the History of the Northwest Coast, whether on the ground of inherent
rights, or rights of discovery or occupation, there was little to choose
between the two nations. The people of Oregon further held that the convention
of 1818 conferred 110 title, in which they were correct. They held that the
Hudson’s Bay Company, under its charter, could acquire 110 title to land—only
to the occupancy of it for a limited time; in which position they were
undoubtedly right. They denied that the Puget Sound Company, which derived its
existence from the Hudson’s Bay Company, could have any title to land, which
was evident. They were quick to per­ceive the intentions of the parent company
in laying claim to large bodies of land on the north side of the Columbia, and
covering them with settlers and herds. They had no thought that when the
boundary was settled these ■claims would be
respected, and felt that not only they but the government had been cheated— the
latter through its ignorance of the actual facts in the case. So far I cannot
fail to sympathize with their sound sense and patriotism.

But I find also that
they forgot to be just, and to realize that British subjects on the north side
of the Columbia were disappointed at the settlement of the boundary on the 49th
parallel; that they naturally sought indemnity for the distraction it would be
to their business to move their property out of the territory, the cost of
building new forts, opening new farms, and laying out new roads. But above all
they forgot that as good citizens they were bound to re­spect the engagements
entered into by the govern­ment whether or not they approved them; and while
they were using doubtful means to force the British companies out of Oregon,
were guilty of ingratitude both to the corporation and individuals.

The issue on which
the first delegate to congress elected m Oregon, Samuel R. Thurston, received
his

Hisx. Ob-, Vol. II. 8

majority, was that of
the anti-Hudson’s Bay Com­pany sentiment, which was industriously worked up by
the missionary element, in the absence of a large number of the voters of the
territory, notably of the Canadians, and the young and independent western men.22
Thurston was besides a democrat, to which party the greater part of the
population belonged; but it is the testimony of those who knew best that it was
not as a democrat that he was elected.® As a member of the legislature at its
last session under the provisional government, he displayed some of those
traits which made him a powerful and useful champion, or a. dreaded and hated
foe.

Much has been said
about the rude and violent manners of western men in pursuit of an object, but
Thurston was not a western man; he w’as supposed to be something more elevated
and refined, more cool and logical, more moral and Christian than the peo­ple
beyond the Alleglianies; he was born and bred an eastern man, educated at an
eastern college, was a good Methodist, and yet in the canvass of

28 Mrs E. }'
Odell, ntn McClench, who came to Oregon as Thurston’s wife, and v. ho cherishes
a high regard for his talents and memory, has fur­nished to my library a
biographical sketch of her iirst husband Though strongly tinctured by personal
and partisan feeling, it is valuable as a view from her standpoint of the
character and services of the ambitious young man who lirst represented Oregon
in congress—how worthily, the record will determine. Mr Thurston -w as bom in
Monmouth, Maine, in 1818, and reared in tne little town of Peru, subject to
many toils and privations commmi to the Yankee youth of that day. He possessed
a thirst for knowledge also common in New England, and became a hard student at
the Wesleyan semi­nary at PveadSeld, from which he entered liowdoin college,
graduating in the class of 1843. He then entered on the study of law in
Brunswick, where he was soon admitted to jjractice. A natural partisan, he
became an ardent democrat, and was not only fearless but aggressive i« his
leadership oi the politicians of the school. Having married Miss Elizabeth P.
McClench, of Fayette, he removed with her to Burlington, Iowa, in 1845, where
he edited the Burlington Gazette till 1847, when he emigrated to Oregon. From
his education as a Methodist, his talents, and readiness to become a partisan,
he naturally affiliated with the Mission party. Mrs Odell remarks ill her Biog­raphy
of Thurston, MS., £, that he was ‘not elected as a partisan, though liis
political views were well understood;’ but L. F. Grover, who knew him well in
college days and afterward, says that ‘he ran on tho issue of the missionary
settlers againat the Hudson’s Bay Company.’ Public. Life in Or., MS., 95.

1849 he introduced
into Oregon the vituperative and invective style of debate, and mingled with it
a species of coarse blackguardism such as no Kentucky ox- driver orMissouii
flat-boatman might hope to excel.24 Were it more effective, he could
be simply eloquent and impressive; where the tire-eating style seemed likely to
win, he could hurl epithets and denuncia­tions until his adversaries withered
before them.23

And where so pregnant
a theme on which to rouse the feelings of a people unduly jealous, as that of
the aggressiveness of a foreign monoply? And what easier than to make promises
of accomplishing great things for Oregon? And yet I am bound to say that what
this scurrilous and unprincipled demagogue promised, as a rule he performed. He
believed that to be the best course, and he was strong enough to pursue it. Had
he never done more than he engaged to do, or had he not pi ivately engaged to
carry out a scheme of the Methodist missionaries, whose sentiments he mistook
for those of the majority, being himself a Methodist, and having been but
eighteen months in Oregon when he left it for Washington, his success as a
politician would have been assured.

Barnes, in his
manuscript entitled Oregon and Cali­fornia, relates that Thurston was prepared
to go to California with him when Lane issued his proclama­tion to elect a
delegate to congress. He immediately

24‘ I have heard an old settler give an
account of a discussion in Polls county between Nesmith and Thurston during the
canvass for the election of delegate to congress. He said Nesmith had been
accustomed to brow­beat every man that came about him, and drive him off either
by ridicule or fear. In both these capacities Nesmith was a strong man, and
they all thought Nesmith had the field. But when Thurston got up they were
astonished at his eloquence, and particularly at his bold manner. .My inform­ant
says that at one stage Nesmith jumped up and began to move toward Thurston; and
Thurston pointed his linger straight at him, after putting it on his side, and
said: “ Don’t you take another step, or a button-hole will bfi seen through
you,” and Nesmith stopped. But the discussion proved that Thurston was a full
match for any man in the practices in which his antago­nist was distinguished,
and the result wah that Thurston carried the election by a large majority.’
Grover’s Pub. Life, MS., 9G-7.

25‘ He was a man of such impulsive, harsh
traits, that he would often carry college feuds to extremities. I have known
him to get so excited in recount­ing some of his struggles, that he would take
a chair and smash it ill to pieee3 over the table, evidently to exhaust the
extra amount of vitality.’ Id., (J4.

decided to take liis
chance among the candidates, with what result we know.26

The first we hear of
Thurston in his character of delegate is on the 24th of January 1850, when he
rose in the house and insisted upon being allowed to make an explanation of his
position. When he left Oregon, be said, he bore a memorial from the legisla­tive
assembly to congress which he could not produce on account of the loss of his
baggage on the Isthmus. But since he had not the memorial, lie had drawn up a
set of resolutions upon the subjects embraced in the memorial, which he wished
to offer and have referred to their appropriate committees, in order that while
the house might be engaged in other matters he might attend to his before the
committees. He had waited, he said, nearly two months for an opportunity to
present his resolutions, and his territory had not yet been reached in the call
for resolutions. He would detain the house but a few minutes, if he might be
allowed to read what he had drawn up. On leave being granted, he proceeded to
present, not an abstract of the memorial, which has been given elsewhere, but a
series of questions for the judiciary committee to answer, in reference to the
rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and Puget Sound Agricultural Associ­ation.27
This first utterance of the Oregon delegate, when time was so precious and so
short in which to labor for the accomplishment of high designs, gives us the
key to his plan, which was first to raise the question of any rights of British
subjects to Oregon lands in fee simple under the treaty, and then to exclude
them if possible from the privileges of the donation law when it should be
framed.*8

16Thurston was in ill-health when he left
Oregon. He travelled in a small boat to Astoria, taking six days for the trip;
by sailing vessel to San Francisco, and to I’anamii by the steamer Carolina,
being ill at the last place, yet having to ride across the Isthn.-us, losing
his baggage because he was not able to luuk ifter the thieving carriers. His
determination and ambition were remarkable. Odell’s Biography of Thurston, MS.,
5(5.

28 That
Thurston exceeded the instructions of the legislative assembly there is no
question. See Or. Archives, MS., lbo-6.

The two months which
intervened between Thurs­ton’s arrival in Washington and the day when he in­troduced
his resolutions had not been lost. He had studied congressional methods and
proved himself an apt scholar. He attempted nothing without first hav­ing tried
his ground with the committees, and pre­pared the way, often with great labor,
to final success. On the 6th of February, further resolutions were introduced
inquiring into the rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company to cut and manufacture
timber growing on the public lands of Oregon, and particuarly on lands not
inclosed or cultivated by them at the time of the ratification of the Oregon
treaty; into the right of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company to any more land
than they had under inclosure, or in a state of actual cultivation at that
time; and into the right of the Hudson’s Bay Company, under the sec­ond article
of the treaty, or of British subjects trad­ing with the company, to introduce
through the port of Astoria foreign goods for consumption in the ter­ritory
free of duty,® which resolutions were referred to the judiciary committee. On
the same day he in­troduced a resolution that the committee on public lands
should be instructed to inquire into the expedi­ency of reporting a bill for
the establishment of a land office in Oregon, and to provide for the survey of
a portion of the public lands in that territory, con­taining such other
provisions and restrictions as the committee might deem necessary for the
proper man­agement and protection of the public lands.80

Iu the mean time a
bill was before the senate for the extinguishment of the Indian title to land
west of the Cascade Mountains. This was an important preliminary step to the
passage of a donation act.31

•9 Cong.
Globe, lSIft-50, 295.

30Id., 295.
A correspondent of the New York Tribune remarks on Thurston’s resolutions: ‘
There are squalls ahead for the Hudson's Bay Company.’ Or. Spectator, May 2,
1830.

It was chiefly
suggested by Mr Thurston, and was passed April 22d without opposition. Having
se­cured this measure, as he believed, he next brought up the topics embraced
in the last memorial on which he expected to found his advocacy of a donation
law, and embodied them in another series of resolutions, so artfully drawn up32
as to compel the committee to take that view of the subject most likely to
promote the success of the measure. Not that there was reason to fear serious
opposition to a law donating a liberal amount of land to Oregon settlers. It
had for years been tacitly agreed to by every congress, and could only fail on
some technicality. But to get up a sympathetic feeling for such a bill, to
secure to Ore­gon all and more than was asked for through that feeling, and to
thereby so deserve the approval of the Oregon people as to be reelected to congress,
was the desire of Thurston’s active and ardent mind. And toward this aim he
worked with a persistency that was admirable, though some of the means resorted
to, to bring it about, and to retain the favor of the party that elected him,
were as unsuccessful as they were reprehensible.

From the first day of
his labors at Washington this relentless demagogue acted in ceaseless and open
hos­tility to every interest of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Oregon, and to
every individual in any way con­nected with it.33

Thurston, like
Thornton, claimed to have been the author of the donation land law. I have
shown in a

,2 Cong.
Globe, 1849-50, 413; Or. Riatesman, May 9, 1851.

33 Here id a
sample of the ignorance or mendacity of the rnan, w hichever you will. A circular
issued by Thurston while in Washington to save letter- writing, says, speaking
of the country in which Vancouver is located: ‘It was formerly called Clarke
county; but at a time when British sway was ill its palmy days in Oregon, the
county was changed from Clarke to Vancouver, in honor of the celebrated
navigator, and no less celebiated slanderer of our government and people. Now
that American influence rules in Oregon, it is due to the hardy, wayworn
American explorer to realter the name of this county, and grace it again with
the name of him whose history is interwoven with that of Oregon. So our
legislature thought, and so I have no doubt they spoke and acted at their
recent session.’ Johnson'sCal. and Or., 267. It was certainly peculiar to hear
this intelligent legislator talk of counties

previous chapter that
a bill creating the office of sur­veyor-general in Oregon, and to grant
donation rights to settlers, and for other purposes, was before congress in
both houses in January 1848, and {hat it failed through lack of time, having to
await the territorial bill which passed at the last moment. Having been crowded
out, and other affairs pressing at the next session, the only trace of it in
the proceedings of con­gress is a resolution by Collamer, of Vermont, on the
25tli of January 1849, that it should be made the special order of the house
for the first Tuesday of February, when, however, it appears to have been
forgotten; and it was not until the 22d of April 1850 that Mr Fitch, chairman
of the committee on territo­ries, again reported a bill on this subject. That
the bill brought up at this session was but a copy of the previous one is
according to usage; but that Thurston had been at work with the committee some
peculiar features of the bill show.34

There was tact and
diplomacy in Thurston’s char­acter, which he displayed in his short
congressional

in Oregon before the
palmy days of British swuy, ’nd of British residents naming counties at all
While Thurston was in Washington, tho postmaster- general changed the name of
the postotiice at Vancouver to Columbia City. Or. Statesman, May 28, 1851.

31 Thornton
alleges that he presented Thurston before leaving Oregon with a copy of his
bill, Or. Hist., MS., 13, and further that ‘ tho donation law we now have,
except the 11th section and one or two unimportant amendments, is an exact copy
of the bill I prepared.’ Or. Pioneer jlsso. Trans. 1874, 94. Yet when Thurston
lost his luggage on tho Isthmus he lost all his papers, and could not have made
an ‘exact copy’ from memory. In another place he says that before leaving
Washington he drew up a land bill which he sent to Collamer in Vermont, and
would have us believe that this was the iden­tical bill which finally passed.
Not knowing further of the bill than w hat was stated by Thornton himself, I
would only remark upon the evidence that Collamer’s term expired before lb50,
though that might not have pre­vented him from introducing any suggestions of
Thornton’s into the bill reported in January 1849. But now comes Thornton of
his own accord, and admits he has claimed too much. Ho did, he says, prepare a
territorial and also a land bill, but on ‘further reliction, and after
consulting others, I deemed it not well to have these new bills offered, it
having been suggested that the bills already pending in both houses of congress
could be amended by incorporating into them whatever there was in my bills not
already pro­vided for in the bills which in virtue of their being already on
the calendar Would be reached before any bills subsequently introduced.’ From a
letter dated August 8, 1882, which is intended as an addendum to the Or. Hist.,
MS., of Thornton.

career. He allowed
the land bill to drift along, mak­ing only some practical suggestions, until
his resolu­tions had had time to sink into the minds of members of both houses.
When the bill was well on its way lie proposed amendments, such as to strike
out of the fourth section that portion which gave every set­tler or occupant of
the public lands above the age of eighteen a donation of three hundred and
twenty acres of land if a single man, and if married, or becoming married
within a given time, sis. hundred and forty acres, one half to himself in his
own right, and the other half to his wife in her own right, the surveyor-
general to designate the part muring to each;35 and to make it read
“ that there shall be, and hereby is granted to every white male settler, or
occupant of the public lands, American half-breeds included, members and
servants of the Hudson’s Bay and Puget Sound companies excepted,” etc.

He proposed further a
proviso “that every foreigner making claim to lands by virtue of this act,
before lie shall receive a title to the same, shall prove to the
surveyor-general that he has commenced and com­pleted his naturalization and
become an American citizen.” The proviso was not objected to, but the previous
amendment was declared by Bowlin, of Mis­souri, unjust to the retired servants
of the fur com­pany, who had long lived on and cultivated farms. The debate upon
this part of the bill became warm, and Thurston, being pressed, gave utterance
to the following infamous lies:

“This company has
been warring against our gov­ernment these forty years. Dr McLoughlin has been
their chief fugleman, first to cheat our government out of the whole country,
and next to prevent its settlement. He has driven men from claims and from

35This was the principle of the donation
law as passed. The surveyor- general usually inquired of the wife her choice,
and was gallant enough to give it her; hence it usually happened that the
portion lia\ingthe dwelling and improvements upon it went to the wife.

the country to stifle
the efforts at settlement. In 1845 he sent an express to Fort Hall, eight
hundred miles, to warn the American emigrants that if they attempted to come to
Willamette they would all be cut off; they went, and none were cut off. ..I was
instructed by my legislature to ask donations of land to American citizens
only. The memorial of the Oregon legislature was reported so as to ask dona­tions
to settlers, and the word was stricken out, and citizens inserted. This, sir, I
consider fully bears me out in insisting that our public lands shall not be
thrown into the hands of foreigners, who will not become citizens, and who
sympathize with us with crocodile tears only.26...I can refer you to
the su­preme judge of our territory37 for proof that this Dr
McLoughlin refuses to file his intention to become an American citizen.88
If a foreigner would bona fide file his intentions I would not object to give
him land. There are many Englishmen, members of the Hudson’s

36The assertion contained in this paragraph
that the word ‘ settler’ was altered to ‘ citizen ’ in the memorial was also
untrue. I have a copy of the memorial signed by the chief cherk of both the
house and council, and in­scribed, ‘Passed July 2G, 1849,’ in which congress is
asked to make a grant of 640 acres of land ‘ to each actual settler, including
widows and orphans. ’ Or. Archives, J1S., 177.

37Bryant was then in Washington to assist
in the missionary scheme, of which, as the assignees of Abemethy, both he and
Lane were abettors.

s"
Thurston also knew this to be untrue. William J. Berry, writing in the
Spectator, Dec. 2G, 1850, says: ‘Now, I assert that Mr Thurston knew, previous
to the election, that Dr McLoughlin had filed his intentions. I heard him say,
in a stump speech at the City Hotel, that he expected his (the doctor’s) vote.
At the election I happened to be one of the judges. Dr McLoughlin came up to
vote; the question was asked by myself, if he had filed his intentions. The
clerk of tlie court, George L. Curry, Esq., who was standing near the window,
said that he had. He voted.’ Says McLoughlin: ‘I declared my intention to
become an American citizen on the 30th of May, 1849, as any one may see who
will examine the records of the court.’ Or. Spectator, Sept. 12, 1850. Waldo,
testifies: ‘Thurston lied on the doctor. He did it because the doctor would not
vote for him. He lied in congress, and got others to write lies from here about
him—men who knew nothing about it. Tliey falsified about the old doctor
cheating the people, setting the Indians on them, and treating them badly.’
Critiques, MS., 15. Says Apple­gate: ‘ Thurston asserted among many other
falsehoods, that the doctor utterly refused to become an American citizen, and
Judge Bryant endorsed the asser­tion.’ Historical Correspondence, MS., 14. Says
Grover: ‘The old doctor was looking to becoming a leading American citizen
until this difficulty oc­curred in regard to his land. He hail taken out
naturalization papers. All his life from young manhood had been spent in the
north-west; and he was not going to leave the country.’ Public Life in Or.,
MS., 91.

Bay Company, who
would file their intention merely to get the land, and then tell you to
whistle. Now, sir, I hope this house, this congress, this country, will not
allow that company to stealthily get possession of all the good land in Oregon,
and thus keep it out of the hands of those who would become good and worthy
citizens.” 39

Having prepared the
way by a letter to the house of representatives for introducing into the land
bill a section depriving McLouglilin of his Oregon City claim, which he had the
audacity to declare was first taken by the Methodist mission, section eleventh
of the law as it finally passed, and as it now stands upon the sixty-eighth
page of the General Laws of Ore­gon, was introduced and passed without
opposition. Judge Bryant receiving his bribe for falsehood, by the reservation
of Abernethv Island, which, was “con­firmed to the legal assigns of the
Willamette Milling and Trading Company,” while the remainder, except lots sold
or given away by McLoughlin previous to the 4th of March 1849, should be at the
disposal of the legislative assembly of Oregon for the establish­ment and
endowment of a university, to be located not at Oregon City, but at such place
in the territory as the legislature might designate. Thus artfully did the
servant of the Methodist mission strive for the ruin of McLoughlin and the
approbation of his con­stituents, well knowing that they would not feel so much
at liberty to reject a bounty to the cause of education, as a gift of any other
kind.41'

” Cong. Globe,
1840-50, 1079.

40In Thurston’s letter to the house of
representatives he appealed to them to pass the land bill without delay, on the
ground that Oregon was becoming depopulated through the neglect of congress to
keep its engagement. Tlu people of the States had, he declared, lost all
confidence in their previous belief that a donation law would be passed; and
the people in the territory were ceasing to improve, were going to California,
and when they were fortunate enough ti> make any money, were returning to
the Atlantic States. ‘ Our pop­ulation,’he said, ‘is dwindling away, and our
anxieties and fears can easily be perceived.’ Of the high water of 1849-50,
which carried away property and damaged mills to the amount of about £300,0C0,
hesaid: The owners who have means dare not rebuild because they have no title.
Each mail is collecting hi* means in anticipation that he may leave the
country. ’ And this, although

To his endeavor to
accomplish so much villany the delegate failed. The senate struck out a clause
in the fourth section which required a foreigner to emigrate from the United
States, and which lie had persuaded the house to adopt by his assertions that
without it the British fur company would secure to themselves all the best
lands in Oregon. Another clause insisted on by Thurston when he found he could
not exclude British subjects entirely, was that a foreigner could not become
entitled to any land notwithstanding his intentions were declared, until he had
completed his naturalization, which would require two years; and this was
allowed to stand, to the annoyance of the Canadian settlers who had been twenty
years 011 their claims.41 But the great point gained in Thurston’s
estimation by the Oregon land bill was the taking- away from the former head of
the Hudson’s Bay Company of his dearly bought claim at the falls of the
Willamette, where a large portion of his fortune was invested in improvements.
The last proviso of the fourth section forbade any one claiming under the land
law to claim under the treaty of 184G. McLough- lin, having declared his intention
to become an Ameri­can citizen was no longer qualified to claim under the
treaty, and congress having, on the representations of Thurston, taken from
McLoughliu what he claimed under the land law there was left 110 recourse what­ever.42

he had told Johnson,
California and Oregon, which see, page 252, exactly the contrary. See Or.
Spectator, Sept. 12th, and compare with the following: There were 38 mill* in
Oregon at the taking of the census of 1850, and a fair proportion of them
ground wheat. They were scattered through all the counties from the sound to
the head of the Willamette Valley. Or. Statesman, April 25, 1851; and with
this: ‘The census of 1849 showed a population of over 9,000, about 2,000 being
absent in the mines. The census of 1850 showed over 13,000, without counting
the large immigration of that year or the few settlers in the most southern
part of Oregon.’ Or. Statesman, April 10th and 25, 1851

11 Cong.
Globe, 1840-50, 1853.

<2Says
Applegate: ‘It must, have excited a kind of fiendish merriment in the hearts of
Bryant end Thurston; for notwithstanding their assertions to the contrary, both
well knew that the doctor by renouncing hi« allegiance to Great Britain had
forfeited all claims as a British subject.’ Historical Cor­respondence, MS.,
15.

I have said that
Thurston claimed the Oregon land bill as his own. It was his own so far as
concerned the amendments which damaged the interests of men in the country w
hom he designated as foreigners, but who really were the first white persons to
maintain a settlement in the country, and who as individuals, were in every way
entitled to the same privileges as the citizens of the United States, and Avho
had at the first opportunity offered themselves as such. In no other sense was
it his bill. There was not an important clause in it which had not been in
contem­plation for years, or which was not suggested by the frequent memorials
of the legislature on the subject. He worked earnestly to have it pass, for on
it, he believed, hung Ids reelection. So earnestly did he labor for the
settlement of this great measure, and for all other measures which he knew to
be most desired, that though they knew he was a most selfish and unprincipled
politician, the people gave him their gratitude.43

A frequent mistake of
young, strong, talented, but inexperienced and unprincipled politicians, is
that of going too fast and too far. Thurston was an exceed­ingly clever fellow;
the measures which he took upon himself to champion, though in some respects
unjust and infamous, were in other respects matters which lay very near the
heart of the Oregon settler. But like Jason Lee, Thurston overreached himself.
The good that he did was dimmed by a sinister shadow. In September a printed
copy of the bill, containing the obnoxious eleventh section, with a copy of his
letter to the house of representatives, and other like matter, was received by
his confidants, together with an in­junction of secrecy until sufficient time
should have

43 Grover,
Public Life in Oregon, MS., 98-9, calls the land bill ‘Thurston’s work, based
upon Linn’s bill;’ but Grover simply took Thurston’s word for it, he being then
a young nian; whom Thurston persuaded into going to Oregon.
Johnson’s Cal. and Or,, which is, as to the Oregon part, merely a reprint of Thurston’s
papers, calls it Thurston’s bill. Hines, Or, and Institution«, does the same;
but any one conversant with the congressional and legislative history of Oregon
knows better.

passed for the bill
to become a law.4* When the vile injustice to John McLoughlin became
known, those of Thurston’s friends who were not in the conspiracy met the
charge with scornful denial They would not believe it.45 And when
time had passed, and the mat­ter became understood, the feeling was intense. Mc­Loughlin,
as he had before been driven by the thrusts of his enemies to do, replied
through the Spectator to the numerous falsehoods contained in the letter.46
He knew that although many of the older settlers

‘ Keep this still,’
~v,rites the arch schemer, ‘till next mail, when I shall send them generally.
The debate on the California bill closes next Tuesday, when I hope to get
passed my land bill; keep dark 'til next mail. Thurston. June 9, 1850.’ Or.
Spectator, Sept. 12, 1S50.

41Wilson Blain, who was at that time editor
of the Spectator, as Robert Moore was proprietor, found himself unable to
credit the rumor. ‘ We ven­ture the assertion,' he says, ‘ that the story was
started by some malicious or mischief-making person for the purpose of
preventing the improvement of Clackamas rapids.’ Or. Specta'or, Aug. 22, 1850.

181 lie says that I have
realized, up to the 4th of March 1849, ^200,000 from sale of lots; this is also
wholly untrue. I have given away lots to the Metho­dists, Catholics,
Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists. I have given eight lots to a
Homan Catholic nunnery, and eight lots to the Clacka­mas Female Protestant
seminary, incorporated by the Oregon legislature. The trustees are all
l’rotestants, though it is well known I am a, Itoman Catholic. In short, in one
way and another I have donated to the county, to schools, to churches, and
private individuals, more than three hundred town lots, and I never realized in
cash $20,000 from all the original sales I ever made.. .1 was a chief factor in
the Hudson’s Bay Company service, and by the rules of the company enjoy a
retired interest, as a matter of right. Capt. McXei', f native-born citizen of
the United States of America, holds the same rank that I held in the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s service. He never was required to become a British subject; he
will be entitled, by the laws of the company, to the same retired interest, no
matter to what country he may owe allegiance. ’ After declaring that he liad
taken out naturalization papers, and that Thurston was aware of it, and had
asked him for his vote and influ­ence, but that he had voted against him, he
says: ‘ But he proceeds to refer to Judge Bryant for the truth of his
statement, in which he affirms that I assigned to J udge Bryant as a reason why
1 still refused to declare my inten­tion to become an American citizen, that I
could not do it without prejudic­ing my standing in England. I am astonished
how the supreme judge could have made such a statement, as he had a letter from
me pointing out that I hail declared my intention of becoming an American
citizen. The cause which led to my writing this letter is that the island,
called Abernethy’s Island by Mr Thuiston, and tv
hich he proposes to donate to Mr Abernethy, his heirs and assigns, is the same
island which Mr Hathaway and others jumped in 1841, and formed themselves into
a joint stock company, and erected a saw and grist-mill on it, as already
stated. From a desire to pre­serve the peace of the country. 1 deferred
bringing the case to a trial ’til the government extended its jurisdiction over
the country; but when it had done so, a few days after the arrival of Judge
Bryant, and before the courts were organized, Judge Bryant bought the island of
George Abemethy, Esq., who had bought the stock of the other associates, and as
the island was in Judge Bryant’s district, and as there were only two judges in
the territory I

understood the merits
of the ease, all classes were to be appealed to. There were those who had no
regard for truth or justice; those who cared more for party than principle;
those who had ignorantly believed the charges made against him; and those ■w ho, from
national, religious, or jealous feelings, were united in a crusade against the
man who represented in their eyes everything hateful in the British char­acter
and unholy in the Catholic religion, as well as the few who were wilfully
conspiring to complete the overthrow of this British Roman Catholic aristocrat.

There were others
besides McLouglilin who felt themselves injured; those who had purchased lots
in Oregon City since the 4tli of March 1849. Notice was issued to these
property-holders to meet for the purpose of asking congress to confirm their
lots to them also. Such a meeting was held on the 19th of September, in Oregon
City, Andrew Hood being chairman, and Noyes Smith secretary. The meeting was
addressed by Thornton and Pritchett, and a memorial to congress prepared, which
set forth that the Oregon City claim was taken and had been held in accordance
with the laws of the provisional and territorial governments of Oregon; and
that the memorialists considered it as fully entitled to pro­tection as any
other claim; no intimation to the contrary ever having been made up to that
time. That under this impression, both before and since the 4tli of March 1849,
large portions of it, in lots and blocks, had been purchased in good faith by
many citizens of Oregon, who had erected valuable buildings thereon, in the
expectation of having a complete and sufficient title when congress should
grant a title to

thought I could not
at the time bring the case to a satisfactory decision. I therefore deferred
bringing tlie case to a time when the bench wonld be full... Cau the people of
Oregon City believe that Mr Thurston did not know, some months before he left
this, that Mr Abemethy had sold his rights, whatever they were, to Judge
Bryant, and therefore proposing to congress to donate this island to Mr
Abemethy, his heirs and assigns, was in fact, proposing to donate it to Judge
Bryant, his heirs and assigns.’ Or. Spectator, Sept. 12,

isr.o.

the original
occupant. That since the date mentioned, the occupant of the claim had donated
for county, educational, charitable, and religious purposes more than two
hundred lots, which, if the bill pending should pass, would be lost to the
public, as well as a great loss sustained by private individuals who had
purchased property in good faith. They therefore prayed that the bill might not
pass in its present form, believing that it would work a “severe, inequi­table,
unnecessary, and irremediable injustice.” The memorial was signed by tif’ty-six
persons,47 and a reso­lution declaring the selection of the Oregon
City claim for reservation uncalled for by any consider­able portion of the
citizens of the territory, and as invidious and unjust to McLoughlin, was
offered by Wait and adopted, followed by another by Thorn­ton declaring that
the gratitude of multitudes of people in Oregon was due to John McLoughlin for
assistance rendered them. In some preliminary re­marks, Thornton referred to
the ingratitude shown their benefactor, by certain persons who had not paid
their debts to McLoughlin, but who had secretly signed a petition to take away
his property. Mc­Loughlin also refers to this petition in his newspaper
defence; but if there was such a petition circulated or sent it does not appear
in any of the public docu­ments, and must have been carefully suppressed by
Thurston himself, and only used in the committee rooms of members of congress.4*

’s
Considering the fact that Thornton had been in the first instance the

Not long after the
meeting at Oregon City, a pub­lic gathering of about two hundred was convened
at Salem for the purpose of expressing disapproval of the resolutions passed at
the Oregon City meeting, and commendation of the cause of the Oregon delegate.19

In November a meeting
was held in Linn county at which resolutions were passed endorsing Thurston and
denouncing McLoughlin. Nor were there want­ing those who upheld the delegate
privately, and who wrote approving letters to him, assuring him that he was
losing no friends, but gaining them by the score, and that his course with
regard to the Oregon City claim would be sustained.50

Mr Thurston has been
since condemned for his action in the matter of the Oregon City claims. But
even while the honest historian must join in reprobat-

unsuccessful agent of
the leading missionaries in an effort to take away the claim of MoLoughlin, it
might bo difficult to understand how he could appear in the role of the dot
tor's defender. But ever since the failure of that secret mission there had
been a coolness between Abernethy and his private delegate, who, now that he
had been superseded by a bolder and more fortunate though no less unscrupulous
mau, had publicly espoused the canse of the victim of all this plotting, who
still, it was supposed, had means enough left to pay for the legal advice he
was likely to need, if ever he was extricated from the anomalous position into
which he would be thrown by the passage of the Oregon land bill. His
affectation of proper sentiment imposed upon McLoughlin, who gave him
employment for a considerable time. As late as 1870, however, thi.: doughty
defender of the just, on the appearance in print of Mrs Victor’s Hirer of the

IVest, in which the author gives a brief
statement of the Oregon City claim case, taring occasion at that time to court
the patronage of the Methodist church, made a violent attack through its organ,
the Pacific Christian Advo­cate, upon the author of that book for taking the
same view of the case v. hich is announced in the resolution published under
his own name in the Spectator of September 26, 1850. But not having ever been
able to regain in the church a standing which could be made profitable, and
finding that history would vindicate the right, he has made a request in his
autobiography that the fact of his having been MeLoughlin’s attorney should be
mentioned, ‘ in justice to the doctor! It will be left for posterity to judge
whether Thornton or McLoughlin was honored by the association.

49 William
Shaw, a member of the committee framing these resolutions, Bays, in his Pioneer
Life, MS., 11-15: ‘I came here, to Oregon City, ami spent what money I had for
flour, coffee, and one thing anti another, and I went back to the Hudson’s Bay
Company and bought 1,000 poundj of flour from Douglass. I was to pay him for it
after I came into the Valley. He trusted me for it, although he had never seen
me before. I took it up to the Dalles and distributed it among the emigrants. ’
W. C. Rector has, in later years, declared that McLoughlin was the father of
Oregon. McLoughlin little understood the manner in which public sentiment is
manufactured for party or even for individual purposes, when he exclaimed
indignantly: ‘ No man could be found to assert ’ that he had done the things
alleged.

wOdtll's
liiog. of Thurxton, MS., 2G.

ing his unscrupulous
sacrifice of truth to secure his object, the people then in Oregon should be
held as deserving of a share in the censure which has attached to him. His
course had been marked out for him by those who stood high in society, and who
were leaders of the largest religious body in Oregon. He had been elected by a
majority of the people. The people had been pleased and more than pleased with
what he had done. When the alternative had been presented to them of condemning
or endorsing him for this single action, their first impulse was to sustain the
man who had shown himself their faithful servant, even in the wrong, rather
than have his usefulness impaired. Al­most the only persons to protest against
the robbery of McLoughlin were those who were made to suffer with him. All
others either remained silent, or wrote encouraging letters to Thurston, and as
Washington was far distant from Oregon he was liable to be de­ceived.51

When the memorial and
petition of the owners of lots in Oregon City, purchased since the 4th of March
1849, came before congress, there was a stir, because Thurston had given
assurances that he was acting in accordance with the will of the people. But
the memorialists, with a contemptible selfishness not unu­sual in mankind, had
not asked that McLoughlin’s claim might be confirmed to him, but only that
their lots might not he sacrificed.

Thurston sought
everywhere for support. While in Washington he wrote to Wyeth for testimony
against McLoughin, but received from that gentleman only the warmest praise of
the chief factor. Sus­pecting Thurston’s sinister design Wyeth even wrote

E- Thornton
wrote several articles in vindication of McLoughlin’s rights; but he was
employed by the doctor as an attorney. A. E. Wait also denounced Thurston’s
course; but he also was at one time employed by the doctor. Wait said: I
believed him (Thurston) to be Btrangely wanting in discretion; morally and
politically corrupt; towering in ambition, and unscrupulous oj; the means by
which to obtain it; fickle and suspicious in friendship; implauar ble and
revengeful l'atred, vulgar in speech, and prone to falsehood.’ Or. Spectator,
March 20. 1831.

His’ Ob., Vol. II, U

to Winthrop, of
Massachusetts, cautioning him against Thurston’s misrepresentations. Then Thurston
pre­pared an address to the people of Oregon, covering sixteen closely printed
octavo pages, in 'which he re­counts his services and artifices.

With no small cunning
he declared that his reason for not asking congress to confirm to the owners
lots purchased or obtained of McLoughlin after the 4th of March, 1849, was
because he had confidence that the legislative assembly would do so; adding
that the bill was purposely so worded in order that McLough­lin would have no
opportunity of transferring the property to others who would hold it for him.
Thus careful had he been to leave no possible means by which the man who had
founded and fostered Oregon City could retain an interest in it. And having
openly advocated educating the youth of Oregon with the property wrested from
the venerable benefactor of their fathers and mothers, he submitted himself fur
reelection,32 while the victim of missionary and per­sonal malice
began the painful and useless struggle to free himself from the toils by which
his enemies had surrounded him, and from which he never escaped dur­ing the few
remaining years of his life.53

52 Address
to the Electors, 12.

63
McLoughlin (lied September 3, 1857, aged 73 years. He was buried in the
enclosure of the Catholic church at Oregon City; and on liis tombstone, a plain
slab, is ungraved the legend: ‘The Pioneer and Friend of Oregon; also The
Founder of this City.’ He laid his case before congress in a memorial, with all
the evidence, but in vain. Lane, who was then >n that body as a delegate from
Oregon, and who was personally interested in defeating the memorial, succeeded
in doing so by assertions as unfounded as those of Thurston. This blunt old
soldier, the pride of the people, the brave killer of Indians, turned demagogue
could deceive and cheat with the best of them. See Cong. Globe, 1853-4,
1080-82, ami Letter vf Dr McLoughlin, in Portland Oregonian, July 22, 1854.
Toward the close of his life McLoughlin yielded to the tortures of disease and
ingratitude, and betrayed, as he had never done before, the unhappiness liis
enemies had brought upon him. Shortly before his death he said to Grover, then
a young man: ‘I shall live but a little while longer; and this is the reason
that I sent for you. I am an old man and just dying, and you are a young man
and will live many years in this country. As for me, I might better have been
shot’—and he brought it out harshly — •like t bull; I might better have been
.shot forty years ago!’ After a silence, for I did not say anything, he
concluded, ‘than to have lived here, and tried to build up a family and an
estate in this government. 1 became a citizen of the United States in good
faith. I planted all X had here, and the govern-

When the legislative
assembly met in the autumn of 1850 it complied, with the suggestion of
Thurston, so far as to confirm the lots purchased since March

1849to their owners, by passing an act for that pur­pose,
certain members of the council protesting.54 This act was of some
slight benefit to McLoughlin, as it stopped the demand upon him, by people who
had purchased property, to have their money returned.55 Further than
this they refused to go, not having a clear idea of their duty in the matter.
They neither accepted the gift nor returned it to its proper owner, and it was
not until 1852, after McLoughlin had com­pleted his naturalization, that the
legislature passed an act accepting the donation of his property for the
purposes of a university.58 Before it was given back to the heirs of
McLoughlin, that political party to which Thurston belonged, and which felt
bound to justify his acts, had gone out of power in Oregon. Since that time
many persons have, like an army in a wilderness building a monument over a dead
com­rade by casting each a stone upon his grave, placed their tribute of praise
m my hands to be built into

ment has confiscated
my property Now what I want to ask of yon is, that you will give your
influence, after I am dead, to have this property go to my children. I have
earned it, as cither settlers have earned theirs, and it ought to be mine and
my heirs’.’ ‘I told him,’ said Grover, ‘I would favor his request, ami I always
diil favor it; and the legislature finally surrendered the property to his
heirs.’ Pub. Life, MS., 88-90.

°* Waymire and Miller
protested, saying that it was not in accordance with the object of the
donation, and was robbing the university; that the assembly were only agents in
trust, and had no right to dispose of the prop erty without a consideration.
Or. Spectator, Feb. 13, 1851.

65 ‘My father
paid back thousands of dollars,’ says Mrs Harvey. Life of McLaughlin, MS., 38.

“6 The
legislature of 1852 accepted the donation, [n 1853^ a resolution was offered by
Orlando Humason thanking McLoughlin for his generous con­duct toward the early
settlers; but as it was not in very good taste wrongfully to keep a man’s
property while thanking him for previous favors, the reso­

lition was indefinitely postponed. In
1855-6 a memorial wa- dr »wn up by the legislature asking that certain school
lands in Oregon City should ba restored to John McLoughlin, and two townships
of land in lieu thereof should be granted to the university. Salem, Or.
Statesman, .Tan 29th and Feb. 5, 1856. Nothing was done, however, for the
relief of McLoughlin or hia heirs until 1862, ■«
hen the legislature conveyed to the latter fur the. sum of $1,000 the Oregon
City claim; but the long suspension of the title had driven money seeking
investment away from the place and materially lessened its value.

the monument of
history testifying one after another to the virtues, magnanimity, and wrongs of
John Mc- Loughlin.67

Meanwhile, and though
reproved by the public prints, by the memorial spoken of, and by the act of the
legislature in refusing to sanction so patent an iniquity® the Oregon delegate
never abated his in­dustry, but toiled on, leaving no stone unturned to secure
his reelection. He would compel the appro­bation and gratitude of his
constituency, to whom he was ever pointing out his achievements in their be­half.69
The appropriations for Oregon, besides one hundred thousand dollars for the
Cayuse war ex­penses, amounted in all to one hundred and ninety thousand
dollars.6J

159 VV. W.
Buck, who was i member of the council, repudiated the idea that Oregon was
indebted to Thurston for the donation law, which Linn and Bentun had labored
lor long before, and asserted that he hail found congress ready and «illing to
bestow the long promised bounty. And as to the appro­priations obtained, they
were no more than other territories east of the moun- tair s had received.

MThe
several amounts were, 820,000 for public buildings; §20,000 for a penitentiary;
$53,140 for lighthouses at Cape Disappointment, Cape Flattery, and New
Dungeness, and for buoys at the mouth of the Columbia River; $25,000 for the
purposes of the Indian bill; $24,000 pay for legislature, clerks’ hire, office
rents, etc; $15,000 additional Indian fund; $10,000 de­ficiency /und to make,
up the intended appropriation of 1848, which had nierely paid the expenses of
the messengers, Thornton and Meek; $10,000 for the pay of llie superintendent
of Indian affairs, his clerks, office rent, etc.; §10,500, salaries for the
governor, secretary, and judges; $1,500 for taking

Mr Thurston set an
example, which his immediate successors were compelled to imitate, of complete
con­formity to the demands of the people. He aspired to please all Oregon, and
he made it necessary for those who came after him to labor for the same end. It
was a worthy effort when not carried too far; but no man ever yet succeeded for
any length of time in act­ing upon that policy; though there have been a few
who have pleased all by a wise independence of all. In his ardor and
inexperience he went too far. He not only published a great deal of matter in
the east to draw attention to Oregon, much of which was cor­rect, and some of
which was false, but he wrote letters to the people of Oregon through the
Specta­tor,61 showing forth his services from month to month, and
giving them advice which, while good in itself, was akin to impudence on the
part of a young man whose acquaintance with the country was of recent date. But
this was a part of the man’s temperament and character.

Congress passed a
bounty land bill, giving one hundred and sixty acres to any officer or private
who had served one year in any Indian war since 1790, or eighty acres to those
who had served six months. This bill might be made to apply to those who had
served in the Cayuse war, and a bill to that effect was introduced by
Thurston’s successor; but Thurstou had already thought of doing something for
the old soldiers of 1812 and later, many of whom were set­tlers in Oregon, by
procuring the passage of a bill establishing a pension agency.62

He kept himself
informed as well as he could of everything passing in Oregon, and expressed his
ap­proval whenever he could. He complimented the

school
superintendent, McBride, on the sentiments uttered in his report. He wrote to
William Meek of Milwaukie that he was fighting hard to save his land claim from
being reserved for an ordnance depot. He procured, unasked, the prolongation of
the legisla­tive session of 1850 from sixt}T to ninety (lays, for
the purpose of giving the assembly time to perfect a good code, and also
secured an appropriation sufficient to meet the expense of the long session.63
He secured, when the cheap postage bill was passed, the right of the Pacific
coast to a rate uniform with the Atlantic states, whereas before the rate had
been four times as high ; and introduced a bill providing a revenue cutter for
the district of Oregon, and for the establishment of a marine hospital at
Astoria; presented a memorial from the citizens of that place asking for an
appropria­tion of ten thousand dollars for a custom-house; and a bill to create
an additional district, besides applica­tion for additional ports of entry 011
the southern coast of Oregon.

In regard
to the appropriation secured of $100,000 for the Cayuse war, instead of
$150,000 asked for, Thurston said he had to take that or nothing. No money was
to be paid, however, until the evidence should be presented to the secretary of
the treasuiy that the amount claimed had been expended.61

This
practically finished Mr Thurston’s work for the session, and he so wrote to his
constituents. The last of the great measures for Oregon, he said, had been
consummated; but they had cost him dearly, as his impaired health fearfully
admonished him. But he declared before God and his conscience he had done all
that he could do for Oregon, and with an eye single to her interests. He
rejoiced in his success;

6'Id., Oct.
10, 1850; 31st Cong., 1st Sess., U. S. Acts and Res., 31.

04A memorial was received from the Oregon
legislature after the passage of the l)ill dated Dec, 3. 1850, giving the
report of A. E. Wait, commis­sioner, stating that he had investigated and
allowed 340 claims, amounting in all to $87,230.53; and giving it as his
opinion that the entire indebtedness would amount to about §150,000. 31st
Cong., 2d Sess., Sen. Misc. Doc. 29, 3-11

and though
slander might seek to destroy him, it could not touch the destiny of the
territory.61

Between
the time of the receipt of the first copy of the land bill and the writing of
this letter partisan feeling had run high in Oregon, and the newspapers were
filled with correspondence on the subject. M uch of this newspaper writing
would have wounded the delegate deeply, but he was spared from seeing it by the
irregularity and insufficiency of the mail trans­portation,66 which
brought him no Oregon papers for several months.

It soon
became evident, notwithstanding the first impulse of the people to stand by
their delegate, that a reaction wTas taking place, and the more
generous- minded were ashamed of the position in which the eleventh section of
the laud bill placed them in the eyes of the world; that with the whole vast
territory of Oregon wherein to pick and choose they must needs force an old man
of venerable character from his just possessions for the un-American reason
that he was a foreigner born, or had formerly been the honored head of a foreign
company. It was well un­derstood, too, whence came the direction of this vin­dictive
action, and easily seen that it would operate against the real welfare of the
territory.

The more
time the people had in which to think over the matter, the more easily were
they convinced that there were others who could fill Thurston’s place without
detriment to the public interests. An in­formal canvass then began, in which
the names67 of

65 Or.
Spectator, April 3, 1851. The appropriations made at the second session of the
31 st Congress for Oregon were for the expenses of the territory §30,000; for
running base and meridian lines, §9,000; for surveying in Ore­gon, $51,840; for
a custom-house, $10,000; for a light-house and fog-signal at Umpqua River,
$15,000; for fog-signals at the lighthouses to be erected at Disappointment,
Flattery, and New Kungeness, $3,000.

“Writing Jan. 8tli,
hesays: ‘September is the latest date of a paper I have seen. I am uninformed
as yet what the cause is, only from what I expe^ rienced once before, that the
steamer left San Francisco before the arrival of, or -without taking the Oregon
mail.' Or. Spectator, April 10, 1850.

67‘There are
many very worthy and meritorious citizens who migrated to thi3 country at an
early day to choose from. I would mention the names of Eome of the number,
leaving the door open, however, to suggestions trom

several well known
citizens and early settlers were mentioned; but public sentiment took no form
before March, when the Star, published at Milwaukie, pro­claimed as its
candidate Thurston’s opponent in the election of 1849, Columbia Lancaster. In
the mean time R. R. Thompson had been corresponding with Lane, who was still
mining in southern Oregon, and had obtained his consent to run if his friends
wished it.63 The Star then put- the name of Lane in place of that of
Lancaster; the Spectator, nowr managed by I). J. Sclmebley, and a
new democratic paper, the Oregon Statesman, withholding their announcements of
candidates until Thurston, at that moment on his way to Oregon, should arrive
and satisfy his friends of his eligibility.

But when everything
was preparing to realize or to give the lie to Thurston’s fondest hopes of the
future, there suddenly interposed that kindest of our enemies, death, and saved
him from humiliation. He expired on board the steamer California, at sea off
Acapulco on the 9th of April 1851, at the age of thirty-live years. His health
had long been delicate, and he had not spared himself, so that the heat and
discomfort of the voyage through the tropics, with the anxiety of mind
attending his political career, sapped the low- burning lamp of life, and its
flickering flame was ex­tinguished. Yet he died not alone or unattended. He had
in his charge a company of young women, teachers whom Governor Slade of Vermont
was send­ing to Oregon,69 who now became his tender nurses,

others, namely, Jesse
Applegate, J. W. Nesmith, Joel Palmer, I laniel Waldo, Rev. Wm Roberts, the
venerable Robert Moore, James M. Moore, Gen. Joseph Lane and Gen. Lovejoy, and
many others who have recently arrived in the country.’ Cor. of the Or.
Spectator, March ‘27, 1851.

thOr.
Spectator, March 6, 1851; Lane's Autobiography, MS., 57.

19 Five
young women were sent out by the national board of educa­tion, at the request
of Abemethy and others, under contract to teach two years, or refund the money
for their passage. They were all soon married, as a matter of course -Miss
Wands to Governor Gaines; Miss Smith to Mr Beers; Miss Gray to Mr MeLeach; Miss
Lincoln to Judge Skinner; and Miss Millar to Judge Wilson. Or. Sketches, MS.,
15; Grovers Pub. Life in Or., MS., 100; Or. Spectator, March 13, 1851.

and when
they had closed his eyes forever, treasured up every word that could be of
interest to his bereaved wife and friends.70 Thus while preparing
boldly to vin­dicate his acts and do battle with his adversaries, he was forced
to surrender the sword which was too sharp for its scabbard, and not even his
mortal remains were permitted to reach Oregon for two years.71

The
reverence we entertain for one on whom the gods have laid their hands, caused a
revulsion of feeling and an outburst of sympathy. Had he lived to make war in
his own defence, perhaps McLoughlin would have been sooner righted; but the
people, who as a majority blamed him for the disgraceful eleventh sec­tion of
the land law, could not touch the dead lion with disdainful feet, and his party
who honored his talents72 and felt under obligations for his
industry, protected his memory from even the implied censure

70Mrs E. M. AVilson, daughter of Rev. James
P. Millar of Albany, New York who soon followed his daughter to Oregon, gives
some notes of TLur stou’s last days. ‘He wan positive enough,’ she says, ‘to
make a vivid im­pression on my memory. Strikingly good-looking, direct in his
speech, with a supreme will, used to overcoming obstacles.. “Just wait 'til I
get there,” he would say, “I will show those fellows!”’ Or. Sketches, MS., IIS.

71The legislature in 1853 voted to remove
his dust from foreign soil, and it was deposited in the cemetery at Salem; and
in 1856 a monument was erected over it by the ’same authority, [t is a plain
shaft of Italian marble, 12 feet high. On its eastern face is inscribed:
‘Thurston: erected by the People of Oregon,’ and a fac-simile of the seal of
the territory; on the north side, name, age, and death; on the south: ‘Here
rests Oregon’s first delegate: a man of genius and learning; a lawysr and
statesman, his Christian virtues equalled by his wide philanthropy, his public
acts are his best eulo- giiun.' Salem Or. Statesman, May 20, 1850; Odell’s
Biog. of Thurston, MS., 37; S. F. D. Alta, April 25, 1831.

72Thurston made his first high mark in
congress by his speech on the admission of California. See Gong. Globe,
J8//9-60, app. 345. His remarks on the appropriations for Indian affairs were
so instructive and inter­esting that his amendments were unanimously agreed to.
A great many members shook him heartily by the hand after he had closed; and he
was assured that if he had asked for §50,000 after such a speech he would have,
received it. Or. Spectator, Aug. 22, 1850. With that tendency to see some­thing
peculiar in a man who has identified himself with the west, the N. Y. Sun of
March 20, 1850, remarked: ‘Comingfrom the extreme west’—he was not two years
from Maine—‘where, it is taken for granted, the people are in a more primitive
condition than elsewhere under this government, and look­ing, as Mr Thurston
does, like a fair specimen of the frontier man, little v as expected of him in
an oratorical way. But he has proved to be one. of the most effective speakers
in the hall, which has created no little surprise.’ A Massachusetts paper also
commented in a similar strain: ‘Mr Thurston is a young man, an eloquent and
effective debater, and a bold and active man, auch as are found only in the
west.’

of undoing
liis work. And all felt that not he alone, but bis secret advisers were
likewise responsible.

In view of all the
circumstances of Thurston’s career, it is certainly to be regretted, first,
that he fell under the influence of, or into alliance with, the mis­sionary
party; and secondly, that he had adopted as a part of bis political creed the
maxim that the end sanctifies the means, by which he missed obtaining that high
place in the estimation of posterity to which he aspired, and to which he could
easily have attained by a more honest use of his abilities. Associated as he is
with the donation law, which gave thousands of persons free farms a mile square
in Oregon, his name is engraved upon the foundation stones of the state beside
those of Floyd, Linn, and Benton, and of Gra­ham 1ST. Fitch, the actual author
of the bill before con­gress in 1850.73 No other compensation had
he;74 and of that even the severest truth cannot deprive him.

Thurston
had accomplished nothing toward securing a fortune in a financial sense, and he
left bis widow with scanty means of support. The mileage of the Oregon delegate
was fixed by the organic act at $2,500. It was afterward raised to about double
that amount; and when in 185G-7 on this ground a bill for the relief of his
heirs was brought before con­gress, the secretary of the treasury was
authorized to make up the difference in the mileage for that purpose.

An
Official
Vacancy—Gaines Appointed Governor—His Reception is Oregon—The Legislative
Assembly in Session—Its Personnel-— The Territorial Lier\ry—Location of the Capital—Oregon
City or Salem—Warm and Prolonged Contest—Two Legislatures— War between the
Law-makers and the Federal Judges—Appeal to Congress — Salem Declared the
Capital—A New Session Called—Feuds of the Public Press—Unpopularity of Gaines—
Close or his Term—Lane Appointed his Successor.

From the
first of May to the middle of August

1850there was neither governor nor district judge
in the territory; the secretary and prosecuting attor­ney, with the United
States marshal, administered the government. On the 15th of August the United
States sloop of war Falmouth arrived from San Fran­cisco, having on board
General John P. Gaines,1 newly appointed governor of Oregon, with
his family, and other federal officers, namely: General Edward Ham­ilton of
Ohio,2 territorial secretary, and Judge Strong of the third
district, as before mentioned.3

’According to A.
Bush, 01 the Oregon Statesman, Marshall of Indiana was the first choice of
President Taylor; but according to Grover, Pub. Life in (Jr., MS., Abraham
Lincoln was first appointed, and declined. Which of these authorities is
correct ia immaterial; it shows, however, that Oregon was considered too far
off to be desirable.

2Hamilton was bom in Culpeper Co., Va. He
was a lawyer by profession; removed to Portsmouth, Ohio, where he edited the
Portsmouth Tribune. He was a captain in the Mexican ■war, his
title of general being obtained in the militia service. Elis wife was Miss
Catherine Royer.

3The other members of the party were
Archibald Gaines, A. Kinney, James E. Strong, Mrs Gaines, three daughters and
two sons, Mrs Hamilton and daughter, and Mrs Strong and daughter. Gaines lost
two daughters, 17 and 19 years of age, of yellow fever, at St Catherine’s, en
route; and Judge Strong a son of five years. They all left New York in the
United States

(139)

Coming in
greater state than his predecessor, the new governor was more royally welcomed,4
by the firing of cannon, speeches, and a public dinner. In return for these
courtesies Gaines presented the ter­ritory with a handsome silk flag, a gift
which Thurs­ton, m one of his eloquent encomiums upon the pioneers of Oregon
and their deeds, reminded con­gress had never yet been offered by the
government to that people. But Governor Gaines was not sin­cerely welcomed by
the democracy, who resented the removal of Lane, and who on other grounds
disliked the appointment. They would not have mourned if when he, like Lane,
was compelled to make procla­mation of the death of the president by whom lie
was appointed,5 there had been the prospect of a removal in
consequence. The grief for President Taylor was not profound with the Oregon
democracy. He was accused of treating them in a cold indifferent man­ner, and
of lacking the cordial interest displayed in their affairs by previous rulers.
Nor was the differ­ence wholly imaginary. There was not the same incentive to
interest which the boundary question, and the contest over free or slave
territory, had inspired before the establishment of the territory. Oregon was
now on a plane with other territories, which could not have the national
legislature at their beck and call, as she had done formerly, and the change
could not occur without an affront to her feel­ings or her pride. Gaines was
wholly unlike the energetic; and debonair Lane, being phlegmatic in

store-ship Supply, in
November 1849, arriving at San Francisco in July 1 850, where they were
transferred to the Falmouth. California Conner, July 21, 1850; Or. Spectator,
Aug. 22, 1850; Strong’s Hist. Or., MS., 1, 2, 13.

1The Or. Statesman of March 28, 1851,
remarks that Gaines came around Cape Horn in a government vessel, with his
family and furniture, arriving at Oregon City nine months after his
appointment, and drawing salary all the time, while Lane being removed, drew no
pay, but performed the labor of his office.

5President Taylor died July 9, 1850. The
intelligence was received in Oregon on the 1st of September. Friday the 20th
was set for the observance of religious funeral ceremonies by proclamation of
Gaines. Or. Spectator, Sept. 5, 1850.

temperament,
fastidious as to his personal surround­ings, pretentious, pompous, and jealous
of his dig­nity.6 The spirit iu which the democracy, who were more
than satisfied with Lane and Thurston, received the whig governor, was ominous
of what soon fol­lowed, a bitter partisan warfare.

There had
been a short session of the legislative assembly in May, under its privilege
granted in the territorial act to sit fur one hundred days, twenty- seven clays
yet remaining. No time or place of meet­ing of the next legislature had been
fixed upon, nor without this provision could there be another session without a
special act of congress, which omission ren­dered necessary the May term in
order that this matter might be attended to. The first Monday in December was
the time named for the convening of the next legislative body, and Oregon City
the place. The assembly remained in session about two weeks, calling for a
special session of the district court at Oregon City for the trial of the
Cayuse murderers, giving the governor power to fill vacancies in certain
offices by appointment, and providing for the printing of the laws, with a few
other enactments.

The
subject of submitting the question of a state constitution to the people at the
election in June was being discussed. The measure was favored by many who were
restive under presidential appointments, and who thought Oregon could more
safely furnish the material for executive and judicial officers than de­pend on
the ability of such as might be sent them. The legislature, however, did not
entertain the idea at its May term, on the ground that there was not time to
put the question fairly before the people. Looking at the condition and
population of the terri­tory at this time, and its unfitness to assume the

'Lane hunself ha-1 a
kind of contempt for Gaines, on acrount of his sur render at Encuinacion. ‘He
was a prisoner during the remainder of the war,’ nays Lane; which was not
altogether true. Autobmjrctphy, MS., 50-7.

expenses
and responsibilities of a state, the conclusion is irresistible that jealousy
of the lead taken in this matter by California, and the aspirations of politi­cians,
rather than the good of the people, prompted a suggestion which could not have
been entertained by the tax-payers.

On the 2d
of December the legislative assembly chosen in June met at Oregon City. It
consisted of nine members in the council and eighteen in the lower house.7
W. W. Buck of Clackamas county was chosen president of the council, and Ralph
Wilcox of Washington county speaker of the house.8 George

7R. P.
Boise, in an address before the pioneer association in 1876, says that there
were 25 members in the house; but he probably confounds this session with that
of 1851-2. The assembly of 1850-1 provided for the increase of representatives
to twenty-two. See list of Acts in Or. Statesman, March 28, 1851; Gen. Laws
Or., 1850-1, 225.

8The names of the councilmen and
representatives are given in the first number of the Oregon Statesman. W. W.
Buck, Samuel T. McKean, Samuel Parker, and W, B. Mealey were of the class which
held over from 1849. I have already given some account of Buck and McKean.
Parker and Mealey were both of the immigration of 1845. Parker was a Virginian,
a farmer and carpenter, but a. man who interested himself in public affairs. He
was a good man. Mealey was a Pennsylvanian; a farmer and physician.

Of the newly elected
councilmen, James McBride has been mentioned as one of the immigrants of 1847.

Richard .Miller of
Marion county was born in Queen Anne’s county, Mary­land, in 1800. He came to
Oregon in 1847, and was a fanner.

A.L. Humphrey of Benton county was born in
Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1796 and emigrated to Oregon in 1847. He was a
farmer and merchant.

Lawrence Hall, a
farmer of Washington county, was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, March 10,
1800, and came to Oregon in 1845.

Frederick Wayinire,
of Polk county, a millwright, was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, March 15,
1807. Ho married Fanny Oochagan, of Indiana, by whom he had 17 children. He came
to Oregon in 1845 and soon became known as an energetic, firm, strong, rough
man, ami an uncompromising partisan. ‘The old apostle of democracy’ and
‘watchdog of the treasury’ were favorite terms used by his friends in
destribing Waymire. He became prominent in the politics of the territory, and
was much respected for his honesty and earnestness, though not always in the
right. His home in Polk county, on the little liver Luckianmte, was called
Hayden Hall. He had been brought up a Methodist, and in the latter part of hi*
life returned to his allegiance, having a library well stocked with historical
and religious works. lie died in April 28, 1873, honored as » true man and a
patriotic citizen, hoping with faith that he should live again beyond the grav e.
II. P. Boise, in Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc.. 1876, 27-8. His wife survived until
Oct. 15, 1878, when she died in her 09th year. Three only of their children are
living. All the members of the council were married men with families, except
Humphrey who wa» a widower.

The members of the
house were Ralph Wilcox, William M. King of Washington cuunty, William Shaw,
William Parker, and Benjamin F. Hard­ing of Marion, the latter elected to fill
a % acancy created by the. death of K.

L. Curry
was elected chief clerk of the council, as­sisted by James D. Turner. Herman
Buck was serjeant-at-arms. Asahel Bush was chosen chief clerk of the house,
assisted by B. Genois. William Holmes was sergeant-at-arms, and Septimus Heulat
doorkeeper.

The
assembly being organized, tho governor was invited to make any suggestions; and
appearing before

Of Wilcox I have
spoken in .mother place; also of Shaw, Walter, Payne, and McAlphin. William M.
King was nom and bred in Litchfield, Ccnn., whence he moved to Onondaga county,
New York, and subsequently to Pennsylvania and Missouri. Ho came to Oregon in
1818 and engaged in business in Portland, soon becoming known as a talented and
unscrupulous politician, as well as a cunning debater and successful tastieian.
He is much censured in the early territorial newspapers, partly for real
faults, and partly, 110 doubt, from partisan feeling. He is described by one
who laiew him as a firm friend and bitter enemy. He died at Portland, after
r.eeing it grow to 1 'a place of wealth and importance, November 8, 1809, aged
G!) years. II. X. V. Holmes was born in Wythe county, Ya., in 1812, but removed
in childhood to Pulaski county, emigrating to Oregon in 1848. He settled in a
picturesque district of Polk county, in the gap between the Yamhill and La
Creolo v_l leys. He was a gentleman, of the old Kentucky school, was several
times a member of the Oregon legislature, and a prosperous farmer.

B.F. Harding, a native of Wyoming county,
Penn., was born in 1822, ard came to Oregon in 18-19. He was a lawyer by
profession, and sett’ed at Salem, for tho interests of which place he
faithfully labored, and for Marion county, which rewarded him by keeping him in
a position of prominence for many years. He mairicd Eliza Cox of Salem in 1851.
He lived later rn a line farm in the enjoyment of abundance and independence.
John Thcrp was captain of a company in the immigration of 1844. He was from
Mt'di3on county, Ky, and settled in Polk county, Oregon, where he followed farm­ing.
Truman P. Powers was born in 1807, and brought up in Chittenden county, Vt,
coming to Oregon in 1840. He settled on the Colombia near Astoria. William
Parker wan a native of Derby county, England, born in 1813, but removed when a
child to New York. He was a farmer and sur veyor. Benjamin Simpson, bom in
W’arren county, Term., in 1810, was raised in Howard county, Mo., and came to
Oregon in 184G, and engaged in merchandising. Hector Campbell was born in
Hampden county, Mass., in 1793, removed to Oregon in 1849, anil settled on a
farm in Clackamas county. William T. Matlock, a lawyer, was born in Rhone
county, Tennessee, i& 1802, removed when a child to Ind’.ana, and to Oregon
in 1847. Samuel M. Gilmore, bom in Bedford county, Tenn., in 1814, removed
lirst to Clay and then to Buchanan county, Missouri, whence he emigrated in
1843, settling in Yamhill county. W. St Clair was an immigrant of 1840.

Joseph C. Avery was
burn in Lucerne county, Penn., June 9. 1817, and was educated at Wilkesbarre,
the county seat. He removed to III. in 1CC9, where he married Martha Marsh in
1841. Four years afterward lie came to Oregon, spending the winter of 1845 at
Oregon City In the following snring he set­tled on a land claim at tho mouth of
Mary s River, where in 1850 he laid out ■i town,
calling it Marysville, but asking the legislature afterward to change the name
to Corvallis, which was done.

Matthew Paul Deady
was born in Talbot co., Md, May 12,1824, of Irish and English ancestry. His
father, Daniel Deady, was a native of Kauturk, Ireland, and was a teacher by
profession. When a young man he came to Baltimore, Md, where he soon married.
After a few years residence in the city he re­moved to Wheeling, Va, and again
in 1837 to Belmont co., Ohio. Here the son worked on a farm until 1S41. For
four year3 afterward he learned black- smithing, and attended school at the
Barnesville academy. From 1845 to 1848 he taught school and read law with Judge
William Kennon, of St Clairs- ville, where ho was admitted to the bar of the
supreme court of Ohio, Oct. 26, 1847. In 1840 he came to Oregon, settling at
Lafayette, in Yamhill co., and teaching school until tho spring of 1830, when
he commenced the practice of the law, and in June of the same year was elected
a member of the legislature, and served on the judiciary committee. In 1851 he
wa3 elected to the council for two years, serving as chairman of the judiciary
committee and president of the council. In 1853 he was appointed judge of the
territorial supreme court, and held the position until Oregon was admitted into
the Union, Feb­ruary 14, 1859, and in the mean time performed the duties of district
judge in the southern district. He was a member of the constitutional
convention of 1857, being president of that body. His influence was strongly
felt in forming the constitution, some of its marked features being chiefly his
work; while in preventing the adoption of other measures he was equally
serviceable. On the admission of Oregon to statehood he was elected a judge of
the supreme coart from the southern district without opposition, and also
received the ap­pointment of U. S. district judge. He accepted the latter
position and re­moved to Portland, where he has resided down to the present
time, enjoying the confidence and respect paid to integrity and ability in
office.

During the years
18G2-4, Judge Deady prepared the codes of civil and criminal procedure and tho
penal code, and procured their passage by the Legislature ai they camo from his
hand, besides much other legislation, in­cluding tho general incorporation act
of 1862, which for the first time in the U. S. made incorporation free to any
three or more persons wishing to engage in any iawrul enterprise or occupation.
In 1884 and 1874 he made and pub­lished a general compilations of the laws of
Oregon.

11a v/as one of the
organizers of tho University of Oregon, and for over twelve years has been an
active member of the board of regents and presi­dent of that body. For twenty
years he has been president of the Library Association of Portland, which under
his fostering care has grown to be one of the most creditable institutions of
the state.

On various occasions
Judge Deady ha3 sat in the U. S. circuit court in San Francisco, %vhere lie has
given judgment in some celebrated cases; among them arc McCall v. McDowell, 1
Deady, 233, in which he held that tho presi­dent could not suspend the habeas
corpus act, the power to do so being vested in congress; Martiuetti v. McGuire,
1 Deady, 216, commonly called the Black Crook case, in which he held that this
spectacular exhibition was not a dra­matic composition, and therefore not
entitled to copy right; Woodruff??. N. B. Gravel Co., 9 Sawyer, 441, commonly
called the Debris case, in which it was held that the hydraulic miners had no
right to deposit the waste of the mines in the watercourses of the state to the
injury of the riparian owners; and Sharon v. Hill, 11 Sawyer, 290, in which it
was determined that the so-called marriage contract between these parties was a
forgery.

On the 24th of June,
1852, Judge Deady wag married to Miss Lucy A. Henderson, a daughter of Robert
and Rhoda Henderson, of Yamhill co., who came to Oregon by the southern route
in 184G. Mr Henderson was born in Green co., Tenn., Feb. 14, 1809, and removed
to Kentucky in 1831, and to Missouri in 1834. Mrs Deady i3 possessed of many
charms of person and character, and ia distinguished for that taet which
renders her at ease in all stations of life. Her children are three sons,
Edward Nesmith, Paul Robert, and Henderson Brooke. The first two have been
admitted to the bar, the third is a physician.

of
information on the progress of the territory toward securing its congressional
appropriations. The five thousand dollars granted in the organic act for erect­ing
public buildings was in his hands, he said, to which would be added the forty
thousand dollars ap­propriated at the last session; and he recommended that
some action be taken with regard to a peniten­tiary, no prison having existed
in Oregon since the burning of the jail at Oregon City. The five thousand
dollars for a territorial library, he informed the assem­bly, had been
expended, and the books placed in a room furnished for the purpose, the custody
of which was placed in their hands.9

The legislative
session of 1850-1 was not harmo­nious. There were quarrels over the expenditure
of the appropriations for public buildings and the location of the capital.
Although the former assembly had called a session in May, ostensibly to fix
upon a place as well as a time for convening its successor, it had not fixed
the place, and the present legislature had come together by common consent at Oregon
City. Conceiving it to be proper at this session to establish the seat of gov­ernment,
according to the fifteenth section of the or­ganic act, which authorized the
legislature at its first session, or as soon thereafter as might be expedient,
to locate and establish the capital of the territory, the legislature proceeded
to this duty. The only places put in competition with any chance of success
were Oregon City and Salem. Between these there was a lively contest, the
majority of the assembly, backed by the missionary interest, being in favor of
Salem, while a minority, and many Oregon City lobby­ists, were for keeping the
seat of government at that place. In the heat of the contest Governor Gaines un­wisely
interfered by a special message, in which, while

Scattered throughout
this history, and elsewhere, are the evidences of the manner in which Judge
Deady ha* impressed himself upon the institu­tions of Portland aj»d the state,
aad always for their benefit He possesses, with marked ability, a genial disposition,
and a distinguished personal ap­pearance, rather added to than detracted from
by increasing years.

9Judge Bryant selected and purchased
$‘2,OUO worth of the books for th* public library, and Gov. Gaines the
remainder.

IIitT. Ok., Vol. II. 10

he did not deny the
right of the legislative assembly to locate and establish the seat of
government, he felt it his duty to call their attention to the wording of the
act, which distinctly said that the money there ap­propriated should be applied
by the governor; and also, that the act of June 11, 1850, making a fur­ther
appropriation of twenty thousand dollars for the erection of public buildings
in Oregon, declared that the money was to be applied by the governor and the
legislative assembly. He further called their at­tention to the wording of the
sixth section of the act, which declared that every law should have but one
object, which should be expressed in the title, while the act passed by the
legislative assembly embraced several objects. He gave it as his opinion that
the law in that form was unconstitutional; but expressed a hope that, they
would not adjourn without taking effectual steps to carry out the
recommendation he had made in his message at the beginning of the session, that
they would cause the public buildings to be erected.

The location bill,
which on account of its embracing several objects received the name of the
omnibus bill,10 passed the assembly by a vote of six to three in the
council and ten to eight in the house, Salem get­ting the capital, Portland the
penitentiary,11 Corvallis the university, and Oregon City nothing.
The mat-

luThe Gaines
clique also denominated the Iowa code, adopted in 1849, the steamboat codc, and
invalid because it contained more than one subject.

u It named three
commissioners, each for the state-house and penitentiary, authorizing them to
select one of their number to be acting commissioner and give bonds in the sum
of 8-0,000. The state-house board consisted of John Force, H. M. Waller, and E.
O. Geer; the penitentiary board, D. H. Lowns- dale, Hugh I). O’Bryant, and
Lucius B. Hastings. The prison was to be of sufficient capacity to receive,
secure, and employ 100 convicts, to be con fined in separate cells. Or.
Spectator, March 27, 1851; Or. Statutes, 1863-4, 509. That Oregon City should
get nothing under the embarrassment of the Uth section of the donation law was
natural, but the whigs and the prop- erty-owners there may have hoped to change
the action of congress in the event of securing the capital. Salem, looking to
the future, was a better location. But the assembly were not, I judge, looking
to anything so much as having their own way. The friends of Salem were accused
of bribery, and there were the usual mutual recriminations. Or. Spectator, Oct.
7 and Nov. 18, 1831.

ter rapidly took
shape as a political issue, the demo­crats going for Salem and the whigs for
Oregon City, the question being still considered by many as an open one on
account of the alleged unconstitutionality of the act.12 At the same
time two newspapers were started to take sides in territorial politics; the Ore­gonian,
whig, at Portland in December 1850, and the Oregon Statesman, democratic, at
Oregon City in March following.13 A third paper, called the Times,
was published at Portland, beginning in May 1851, which changed its politics
according to patronage and circumstances.

13The Oregonian was founded by T. J. Dryer,
who had been previously en­gaged upon the California Courier as city editor,
and was a weekly journal. I)ryer brought an old Ramage press from San
Francisco, with some second­hand material, which answered his purpose for a few
months, when a new Washington press and new material came out by sea from New
York, and the old one was sent to Olympia to start the first paper published on
Puget Sound, called the Columbian. In time the Washington press was displaced
by a power press, and was sold in 1S62 to go to Walla Walla, and afterward to
Idaho. Dryer conducted the Oregonian with energy for ten years, when the paper
passed into the hands of H. L. Pittock, who first began work upon it as a
printer in 1853. It has since become a daily, and is edited and partly owned by
Harvey W. Scott.

The Statesman was
founded by A. W. Stockwell and Henry Russel of Massachusetts, with Asahel Bush
as editor. It was published at Oregon City till June 1853, when it was removed
to Salem, and being and remaining the official paper of the territory, followed
the legislature to Corvallis in 1855, when the capital was removed to that
place and back again to Salem, when the seat of government was relocated there
a few months later. As a party paper it was conducted with greater ability than
any journal on the Pacific coast for a period of about a dozen years. Bush was
assisted at various times by men of talent. On retiring from political life in
1863 he engaged in bank­ing at Salem. Crandall and Wait then conducted the
paper for a short time; but it was finally sold in November 1863 to the Oregon
Printing and Publish­ing Company. In 1866 it was again sold to the proprietors
01 the Unionist, and ceased to exist as the Oregon Statesman. During the first
eight years of its existence it was the ruling power in Oregon, wielding an
influence that made and unmade officials at pleasure. ‘The number of those who
were connected with the paper as contributors to its columns, who have risen to
distinguished positions, is reckoned by the dozen.’ Salem Direetoiy, 1871; Or.
Statesman, March 28, 1851; Id., July 25, 1854; Brown's Will. Val., MS., 34;
Portland Oregonian, April 15, 1876. Before either of these papers was started
there was established at Milwaukie, a few miles below Oregon City, the
Milwaukee Star, the first number of which was issued on the 21st of November
1850. It was owned principally by Lot Whitcomb, the proprietor of the town of
Milwaukie. The prospectus stated that Carter and Waterman were the printers,
and Orvis Waterman editor. The paper ran for three months under its first
management, then was purchased by tho

The result of the
interference of the governor with legislation was to bring down upon him bitter
denun­ciations from that body, and to make the feud a per­sonal as well as
political one. When the assembly provided for the printing of the public
documents, it voted to print neither the governor’s annual nor his special
message, as an exhibition of disapprobation at his presumption in offering the
latter,14 assuming that he was not called upon to address them
unless invited to do so, they being invested by congress with power to conduct
the public business and spend the public money without consulting him. But while
the legis­lators quarrelled with the executive they went on with the business
of the commonwealth.

The hurried sessions
of the territorial legislature had effected little improvement in the statutes
which were still in great part in manuscript, consisting in many instances of
mere reference to certain Iowa laws adopted without change. An act was passed
for the printing of the laws and journals, and Asahel Bush elected printer, to
the disappointment of Dryer of the Oregonian, who had built hopes on his political
views which were the same as those of the new ap­pointees of the federal
government. But the terri­torial secretary, Hamilton, literally took the law
into his own hands and sent the printing to a New York contractor. Thus the war
went on, and the laws were as far as ever from being in an intelligible state,15

printers, and in May
1851 Waterman purchased the entire interpat, when he removed the paper to
Portland, calling it the Times. It survived several subsequent changes and
continued to be published till 18G4, recording in the mean time many of Ihe
early incidents in the history of the country. Portland Oregonian, April 15,
1876.

4The Spectator o+ Feb. 20, 1851, rebuked
the assembly for its discour tesy, saying it knew of no other instance where
the annual message of the governor had been treated with such contempt.

15 The
Spectator of August 8, 1850, remarked that there existed no law in the
territory regulating marriages. If that were true, there could have ex­isted
none since 1845, w hen the las* change in the provisional code was made. There
is a report of a debate on ‘a bill concerning marriages,’ in the Spectator of
Jan. 2, 1851, but the list of laws passed at the session of 1850-1 contains
none on marriage. A marriage law was enacted by the legislature of 1851-2.

although the most
important, or latest acts were pub­lished in the newspapers, and a volume of
statutes was printed and bound at Oregon City in 1851. It was not until January
1853 that the assembly pro­vided for the compilation of the laws, and appointed
L. F. Grover commissioner to prepare for publication the statutes of the
colonial and territorial governments from 1843 to 1849 inclusive. The result of
the com­missioner’s labors is a small book often quoted in these pages as Or.
Laws, 1843-0, of much value to the his­torian, but which, nevertheless, needs
to be confirmed by a close comparison with the archives compiled and printed at
the same time, and with corroborative events; the dates appended to the laws
being often several sessions out of time, either guessed at by the compiler, or
mistaken by the printer and not corrected. In many cases the laws themselves
are mere abstracts or abbreviations of the acts published in the Spec­tator.™

ISTor were the
archives collected any more complete, as boxes of loose papers, as late as
1878, to my knowl­edge, were lying unprinted in the costly state-house- at
Salem. Many of them have been copied for my

Among men inclined
from the condition of society to early marriages, as I have before mentioned,
the wording of the donation law stimulated the desire to marry in order to
become lord of a mile square of land, while it influenced women to the same
measure, as it was only a wife or widow who was entitled to 320 acres. Many
unhappy unions were the consequence, and numerous divorces. Deady’* Hist. Or.,
MS., 33; Victor's New Penelope, 19-20.

14Public Life in Oregon is one of the most
scholarly and analytical contri­butions to history which I was able to gather
during my many interviews of 1878. Besides being in a measure a political
history of the country, it abounds with life-like sketches of the public men of
the day, given in a clear and fluent style, and without apparent bias. L. F.
Grover, the author, was born at Bethel, Maine, Nov. 29, 1823. He came to
California in the winter of 1850, and to Oregon early in 1851. He was almost
immediately appointed clerk of the first judicial district by Judge Nelson. He
soon afterward received the appointment of prosecuting attorney of the second
judicial district, and became deputy United States district attorney, through
his law partner, B. F. Harding, who held that office. Thereafter for a long
period he was in public life in Oregon. Grover was a protegg of Thurston, who
had known him in Maine, and advised him when admitted to the bar in
Philadelphia to go to Oregon, where he would take him into his own office as a
law-partner; but Thurston dying, Grover was left to introduce himself to the
new common­wealth, which he did most successfully. Grover’s Pub. Life in Or.,
MS., 100-3; Yreka Union, April 1, 1870.

work, and constitute
the manuscript entitled Oregon Archives, from which I have quoted more widely
than I should have done had they been in print, thinking thus to preserve the
most important information in them. The same legislature which authorized
Grover’s work, passed an act creating a board of commissioners to prepare a
code of laws for the territory,11, and elected J. K. Kelly, JD. R.
Bigelow, and R. P. Boise, who were to meet at Salem in February, and proceed to
the discharge of their duties, for which they were to re­ceive a per diem of
six dollars.15 In 1862 a new code of civil procedure was prepared by
Matthew P. Deady, then United States district judge, A. C. Gibbs, and J. K.
Kelly, and passed by the legislature. The work was performed by Judge Deady,
who attended the session of the legislature and secured its passage. The same
legislature authorized him to prepare a penal code and code of criminal
procedure, which he did. This was enacted by the legislature of 1864, which
also authoiized him to prepare a compilation of all the laws of Oregon then in
force, includ-'ng the codes, in the order and method of a code, which he did,
and en­riched it with notes containing a history of Oregon legislation. This
compilation he repeated in 1874, by authority of the legislature, aided by
Lafayette Lane.

Meanwhile the work of
organization and nation- making went on, all being conducted by these early
legislators with fully as much honesty and intelligence as have been generally
displayed by their successors. Three new counties were established and
organized at the session of 1850-1, namely: Pacific, on the north side of the
Columbia, on the coast; Lane, including

17A. C. Gibbs in bis notes on Or. Hist.,
MS., 13, says that he urged the measure and succeeded in getting it through the
house. It w as supported by Deady, then president of the council; and thus the
code system was begun in Oregon w ith reformed practice and proceedings. At the
same time, Thurs­ton, it is said, when in Washington, advised the appointment
of commis­sioners for this purpose, or that the assembly should remain in
session long enough to do the work, and promised to secure from congress the
money, $6,000, to pay the cost.

18Or. Statutes, 1852-3, 57-8; Or.
Statesman, Feb. 5, 1853.

19See Or. Gen. Laws, 1843-72.

all tliat
portion of the Willamette Yalley south of Benton and Linn;20 and
Umpqua, comprising all the country south of the Calapooya mountains and head­waters
of the Willamette. County seats were located in Linn, Polk, and Clatsop, the
county seats of Clack­amas and Washington having been established at the
previous sessions of the legislature.21

The act passed by the
tirst legislature for collecting the county and territorial revenues was
amended; and a law passed legalizing the acts of the sheriff of Linn county,
and the probate court of Yamhill county, in the collection of taxes, and to
legalize the judicial proceedings of Polk county; these being cases where the
laws of the previous sessions were found to be in conflict with the organic
act. Some difficulty had been encountered in collecting taxes on land to which
the occupants had as yet 110 tangible title. The same feeling existed after the
passage of the donation law, though some legal authorities contended, and it
has since been held that the donation act gave the occu­pant his land in fee
simple, and that a patent was only evidence of his ownership.22 But
it took more time to settle these questions of law than the people or the legislature
had at their command in 1850; hence conflicts arose which neither the judicial
nor

wEugene
City Guard, July 8. 1870; Eugene. Ciiy State Journal, July 8, 1870.

It is difficult
determining the value of these enactments, when for sev­eral sessions one after
the other acts with the same titles appear—instance the county seat uf Polk,
county, which was located in 1849 and again in 1850.

22Deadly's Scrap Book, 5. For some years
Matthew P. Deady employed his leisure moments as a correspondent of the San Francisco
Bulletin, his subjects often being historical and biographical matter, in which
he was, from his liabit of comparing evidence, very correct, and in which he
sometimes enun­ciated a legal opinion. His letters, collected in the form of a
scrap-book, were kindly loaned to me. From these Scraps I have drawn largely;
and still more frequently from his History of Oregon, a thick manuscript volume
given to me from his ovm lips in the form of a dictation while I was in Port­land
in 1878, and taken down by my stenographer. Never in the course of my life have
I encountered in one mind so vast, well arranged, and well digested a store of
tacts, the recital of which to me was a never failing source of wonder and
admiration. His legal decisions and public addresses have also been of great
assistance to me, being free from the injudicial bias of many authors, and
hence most substantial material for history to rest upon. Further than this,
Judge Deady is a graceful writer, and always interesting. As a man, he is one
to whom Oregon owes much.

tlie legislative
branches of the government could at once satisfactorily terminate.

The legislature
amended the act laying out the judicial districts by attaching the county of
Lane to the first and Umpqda to the second districts. This distribution made
the first district to consist of Clack­amas, Marion, Linn, and Lane; the second
of Wash­ington, Yamhill, Benton, Polk, and Umpqua; and the third of Clarke,
Lewis, and Clatsop. Pacific county was not provided for in the amendment. The
judges were required to hold sessions of their courts twice annually in each
county of their districts. But lest in the future it might happen as in the
past, any one of the judges was authorized to hold special terms in any of the
districts; other laws regulating the practice of the courts were passed,23
and also laws regulating the? general elections, and ordering the erection of
court-houses and jails in each county of the territory.

They amended the
common school law, abolishing the office of superintendent, and ordered the
election of school examiners; incorporated the Young Ladies’ Academy of Oregon
City, St Paul’s Mission Female Seminary, the First Congregational Society of
Port­land, the First Presbyterian Society of Clatsop plains; incorporated
Oregon City and Portland; lo­cated a number of roads, notably one from Astoria
to the Willamette Valley,24 and a planlc-road from Portland to
Yamhill county; and also the Yamhill Bridge Company, which budt the first great
bridge in the country. These, with many other less impor­tant acts, occupied
the assembly for sixty days. Thurston’s advice concerning memorializing
congress

"3
Or. Gen. Laws, 1850-1, 15&-164.

24 This was
a scheme of Thurston’s, who, on the. citizens of Astoria peti­tioning congress
to open a road to the Willamette, proposed to accept $10,000 to build the
bridges, promising that the people would build the road. He then advised the
legislature to go oil with the location, leaving it to him to manage the
appropriations. Lane finished his work in congress, and a gov­ernment officer
expended the appropriation without benefiting the Astorians beyond disbursing
the money in their midst. See Slut Cong., 1st Sens., II Com. Ilept., 343, 3.

to pay tlie remaining
expenses of ilie Cayuse war was acted upon, the committee consisting of
McBride, Parker, and Hall, of the council, and Deady, Simpson, and Hardin^ of
the house.25 Nothing further of ini-

ot€O

portance was done at
this session.

When the legislative
assembly adjourned in Feb­ruary, it was known that Thurston was returning to
Oregon as a candidate for reelection, and it was ex­pected that there would be
a heated canvass, but that liis party would probably carry him through in spite
of the feeling which his course with regard to the Oregon City claim had
created. But the unlooked for death of Thurston, and the popularity of Lane,
who, being of the same political sentiments, and gen­erously willing to condone
a fault in a rival who had confirmed to him as the purchaser of Abernetliy Isl­and
a part of the contested land claim, made the ex-governor the most fitting
substitute even with Thurston’s personal friends, for the position of dele­gate
from Oregon. Some efforts had been made to injure Lane by anonymous
letter-writers, who sent to the Keiv York Tribune allegations of intemperance
and improper associations,20 but which wTere sturdily
repelled by his democratic friends in public meetings, and which could not have
affected his position, as Gaines was appointed in the usual round of office-giv­ing
at the beginning of a new presidential and party administration. That these
attacks did not seriously injure him in Oregon was shown by the enthusiasm
'with which his nomination was accepted by the ma­jority, and the result of the
election, as well as by the fact of a county having been named after him
between his removal as governor and nomination as delegate. The only objection
to Lane, which seemed to carry any weight, was the one of being in the
territory

2532(1 Cong., 1st SessIf. Jour., 1050,
1224.

26The writer signed himself ‘Lansdale,’ but
was probably J. Quinn Thorn­ton, who admits writing such letters to get Lane
removed, but gives a different sobriquet as I have already mentioned —that of ‘
Achilles de Harley.*

without liis family,
which gave a transient sir to his patriotism, to which people objected. They
felt that their representative should be one of themselves in fact as well as
by election, and this Lane declared his intention of becoming, and did in fact
take a claim on the Umpqua River to show his willingness to become a citizen of
Oregon. The opposing candidate was W. H. Willson, who was beaten by eighteen
hundred or two thousand votes. As soon as the election was over, Lane returned
to the lately discovered mining districts in southern Oregon, taking with him a
strong party, intending to chastise the Indians of that sec­tion, who were
becoming more and more aggressive as travel in that direction increased, and
their profits from robbery and murder became more important. That he should
take it upon himself to do this, when there was a regularly appointed
superintendent of Indian affairs—for Thurston had persuaded congress to give
Oregon a general superintendent for this work alone—surprised no one, but on
the contrary appeared to be what was expected of him from his aptitude in such
matters, which became before he reached Rogue River Valley wholly a military
affair. The delegate- elect was certainly a good butcher of Indians, who, as we
have seen, cursed them as a mistake or damnable infliction of the Almighty. And
at this noble occu­pation I shall leave him, while I return to the history of
the executive and judicial branches of the Oregon government.

Obviously the
tendency of office by appointment instead of by popular election is to make men
indiffer­ent to the opinions of those they serve, so long as they are in favor
with or can excuse their acts to the ap­pointing power. The distance of Oregon
from the seat of general government and the lack of adequate * mail service
made the Gaines faction more than usu­ally independent of censure, as it also
rendered its critics more impatient of what they looked upon as an

exhibition of petty
tyranny on the part of those who were present, and of culpable neglect on the
part of those who remained absent. From the date of Judge Bryant’s arrival in
the territory in April 1849, to the 1st of January 1851, when he resigned, he
had spent but five months in his district. From December 1848 to August 1850
Pratt had been the only judge in Oregon—excepting Bryant’s brief sojourn. Then
he went east for his family, and Strong was the only judge for the eight months
following, and till the return about the last of April 1851 of Pratt, accom­panied
by Chief Justice Thomas Nelson, appointed in the place of Bryant,27
and J. R. Preston, surveyor- general of Oregon.

The judges found
their several dockets in a condi­tion hardly to justify Thurston’s encomiums in
con­gress upon their excellence of character. The freedom enjoyed under the
provisional government, due in part to the absence of temptation, when all men
were laborers, and when the necessity for mutual help and protection deprived
them of a motive for violence, had ceased to be the boast and the security of
the coun­try. The presence of lawless adventurers, the abun­dance of money, and
the absence of courts, had tended to develop the criminal element, till in 1851
it became notorious that the causes on trial were ofteuer of a criminal than a
civil nature.28

27Memorial af the. Legislative Assembly of
1851-2, in 32d Cong., 1st- fiess., II. Misc. Doc., ix. 2-3. Thomas Nelson was
born at Peekskill, New York, January 23, 1819. Ho was the third son of William
Nelson, a represen­tative in congress, a lawyer by profession, and a man of
worth and public spirit. Thomas graduated at Williams college at the age of 17.
Being still very young he was placed under a private tutor of ability in New
York city, that he might study literature and the French language. He also
attended medical lectures, acquiring in various ways thorough culture and
scholarship, after which he added European travel to his other sources of
knowledge, finally adopting law as a profession. Advancing in the practice of
the law, he became an attorney and counsellor of tho supreme court of the
United States, and was practising with his father in Westchester county, New
York, when he was appointed chief justice of Oregon. Judge Nelson’s private,
character was faultless, his manners courteous, and Ids bearing modest and
refined. Livingston's Biotj. Sketches, 69-72; S. It. Thurston, in Or.
Spectator, April 10, 1851.

'*Strong's
Ilist. Or., MS., 14. On the 7th of -January 1S51 William Ham­ilton was shot and
killed near Salem by William Kendall on whose, land claim

This condition of
society encouraged the expression 6f public indignation pleasing to party
prejudices and to the political aspirations of party leaders. At a meeting held
in Portland April 1st, it was resolved that the president of the United States
should be informed of the neglect of the judges of the first and second
districts, no court having been held in Wash­ington county since the previous
spring; nor had any judge resided in the district to whom application

he w as living. A
special term of court was held on the 28th of March to try Kendall, who was defended
by W, G. T’Vault and B. I'. Harding, convicted, sentenced by Judge Strong, and
executed on the 18th of April, there being at the time no jail in which to
coniine criminals in Marion county. About the same time a sailor named Cook was
shot by William Keene, a gambler, in a dispute about a game of ten-pins. Keene
was also tried before Judge Strong, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to
six years in the peniten­tiary. As the jury had decided that he ought not to
hang, and he could not be confined in an imaginary penitentiary, he was
pardoned by the governor. Or. Statesman, May 10, 1851. Creed Turner a few
months after stabbed and killed Edward A. Bradbury from Cincinnati, Ohio, out
of jealousy, both being in love with a Miss Bonser of Sauv£ Island. Deady
defended Lim before Judge Pratt, but he was convicted and hanged in the autumn.
Id.,' Oct. 28, 1851; Deady’i Hut. Or., MS., 59. In Feb. 1852 William Evennan, a
desperate character, shot and killed Serenas C. Hooker, a worthy farmer of Polk
county, for accusing him of taking a watch. He also was convicted and hanged.
He had three associates in crime, Hiram Everman, his brother, who plead guilty
and was sentenced to three years in the penitentiary; Enoch Smith, who cscaped
by the disagreement of the jury, was rearrested, tried again, sentenced to
death, and finally pardoned; and David J. Coe, who by obtaining a change of
venue was acquitted. As there was no prison where Hiram Everman could serve, he
was publicly sold by the sheriff on the day of his brother’s execution, to
Theodore Prather, the highest bidder, and was set at liberty by the petition of
his master just before the expiration of the three years. Smith took a
land-claim in Lane county, and married. After several years his wife left him
for some cause unknown. He shot himself in April 1877, intentionally, as it was
believed. Salem Mercury, April 18, 1877. About the time of the former murder,
Nimrod O’Kelly, in Benton county, killed Jere­miah Mahoney, in p. quarrel about
a land-claim. He was sentenced to the peni­tentiary and pardoned. In August, in
Polk county, Adam E. Wimple, 35 years of age, murdered liis wife, a girl of
fourteen, setting fire to the house to conceal his crime. He had married this
child, whose name was Mary Allen, about one year before. Wimple was a native of
New York. S. F. Alta, Sept. 28, 1852. He was hanged at Dallas October 8, 1852.
Or. States­man, Oct. 23, 1852. Robert Maynard killed J. C. Platt on Rogue River
for ridiculing him. He was executed by vigilants. Before the election of
officers for Jackson county, one Brown shot another man, was arrested, tried
before W. W. Fowler, temporarily elected judge, and handed. Prim's Judic.
Affairs in Southern Or., MS., 10. In July 1853, Joseph ifott was tried for the
mur­der of Ryland D. Hill whom he shot in an affray in Umpqua county. He was
acquitted. Many lesser crimes appear to hav e been committed, such as burglary
and larceny; and frequent jail deliveries were effected, these struc­tures
being built of logs and not guarded In two years after the discovery of gold in
California, Oregon had a criminal calender as large in proportion to the
population as the older states.

could be made for the
administration of the laws. The president should be plainly told that there
were “many respectable individuals in Oregon capable of discharging the duties
of judges, or filling any offices under the territorial government, who would
either discharge their duties or resign their offices.”29 The
arrival of the new chief justice, and Pratt, brought a temporary quiet. Strong
went to reside at Cathlamet, in his own district, and the other judges in
theirs.

At the first term of
court held in Clackamas county by Chief Justice Nelson, he was called upon to
decide upon the constitutionality of the law excluding negroes from Oregon.
This law*, first enacted by the provis­ional legislature in 1844, had been
amended, reenacted, and clung to by the law-makers of Oregon with sin­gular
pertinacity, the first territorial legislature reviv­ing it among their earliest
enactments. Thurston, when questioned in congress concerning the matter,
defended the law against free blacks upon the ground that the people dreaded
their influence among the Indians, whom they incited to hostilities.30
Such a reason had indeed been given in 1844, when two dis­orderly negroes had
caused a collision between white men and Indians, but it could not be advanced
as a sufficient explanation of the settled determination of the founders of
Oregon to keep negroes out of the territory, because all the southern and
western fron­tier states had possessed a large population of blacks, both slave
and free, at the time they had fought the savages, without finding the negroes
a dangerous ele­ment of their population. It was to quite another cause that
the hatred of the African was to be ascribed; namely, scorn for an enslaved
race, which refused political equality to men of a black skin, and which might
raise the question of slavery to disturb the peace of society. It was not
enough that Oregon

should be a free
territory which could not make a bondsman of a black man, but it must exclude
the remainder of the conflict then raging on his behalf in certain quarters.
Judge Nelson upheld the constitu­tionality of the law against free blacks, and
two of­fenders were given thirty days in which to leave the territory.31

The judges found a
large number of indictments in the first and second districts.32 The
most important case in Yamhill county was one to test the legality of taxing
land, or selling property to collect taxes, and was brought by C. M. Walker
against the sheriff, Andrew Shuck, Pratt deciding that there had been no
trespass. In the cases in behalf of the United States, Deady was appointed
commissioner in chan­cery, and David Logan33 to take affidavits and
acknowledgments of bail under the laws of congress. The law practitioners of
1850-1-2 in Oregon had the opportunity, and in many instances the talent, to
stamp themselves upon the history of the common­wealth, supplanting in a great
degree the men who were its founders,81 while endeavoring to rid the
terri-

1115y a
curious coincidence one of the banished negroes was Winslow, the culprit in the
Oregon City Indian affair of 1844, -who had lived since then at the month of
the Columbia. Yanderpool was the other exiie. S. F. Alta, Sept. 10, 1831; Or.
Statexman, Sept. 2, 1861.

02There were 30 indictments in Yamhill
county alone, a large proportion being for breach of verbal contract. Six were
for selling liquor to Indians, being federal cases.

SJLogan was
born in Springfield, 111., in 1824. His father waF. an eminent lawyer, and at
one time a justice of the supreme court of Illinois. David im­migrated to
Oregon in 1850 and settled at Lafayette. He ran against Deady fur the
legislature in 1831 and via? beaten. Soon after he removed to Port­land, where
he became distinguished for his shrewdness and i 'Owers of oratory, being a
great jury lawyer. He married in 1862 Mary P. Waldo, daughter of Daniel Waldo.
His highTy excitable temperament led him into excesses which injured
his otherwise eminent standing, and cut short his brilliant career in 1874.
Salem Mercury, April 3, 1874

tory of men whom they
regarded as transient, whose places they coveted.

There is always
presumably a coloring of truth to charges brought against public officers, even
when used for party purposes as they were in Oregon. The democracy wTere
united in their determination to see nothing good in the federal appointees,
with the ex­ception of Pratt, who besides being a democrat had been sent to
them by President Polk. On the other hand there were those who censured Pratt33
for being what he was in the eyes of the democracy. The governor was held36
equally objectionable with the judges, tirst on account of the position he had
taken on the capital location question, and again for main­taining Kentucky
hospitality, and spending the money of the government freely without consulting
any one, and as his enemies chose to believe without any care for the public
interests. A sort of gay and fashion­able air was imparted to society in Oregon
City by the families of the territorial officers and the hospita­ble Dr
McLoughlin,37 which was a new thing in the Willamette Valley, and
provoked not a little jealousy among the more sedate and surly.35

86 W. W
Chapman for contempt of court was sentenced by Pratt to twenty days’
imprisonment and to have his name stricken from the roll of attorneys. It was a
political issue. Chapman was assisted by his Portland friends to escape, was
rearrested, and on application to Judge Nelson discharged on a, writ of error.
S2d Gong., 1st Sess., Mine. Doc. 9, 3. See also case of Arthur f ayhie
sentenced by Pratt for contempt, in which Nelson listened to a charge by Fayhie
of misconduct in office on the part of Pratt, and discharged the prisoner by
the advice of Strong.

36An example
of the discourtesy used toward the federal officers was given when the governor
was bereaved of his wife by an accident. Mrs Caines was riding on the Clatsop
plains, whither she had gone on an excursion, when her horse becoming
frightened at a wagon she was thrown under the wheels, receiving injuries from
which she died. The same paper which announced her death attacked the governor
with un.stinted abuse. Mrs Caines Mas a daughter of Nicholas Kincaid of
Versailles. Ky. Her mother was Priscilla McBride. She was born March 13, 1800,
and married to Gaines June 22, 181'). Or. Spectator, Aug. 19, lS-el. About
fifteen months after his wife’s death, Gaine» married Margaret B. Wands, one of
the live lady teachers sent to Oregon by Gov. Slade. Or. Statesman, Nov. 27,
1851.

31 Mrs M. E.
Wilson in Or. Sketches, MS., 10.

38Here is what one says of Oregon City
society at the time: All wap oddity. ‘Clergymen so eccentric as to have been
thrown over by the board on account of their queemess, had found their way
hither, and fought their way among peculiai people, into positions of some
kind. People were odd

In order to sustain
his position with regard to the location act, Gaines appealed for an opinion to
the attorney-general of the United States, who returned for an answer that the
legislature had a right to locate the seat of government without the consent of
the governor, but that the governor’s concurrence was necessary to make legal
the expenditure of the appro­priations,39 which reply left untouched
the point raised by Gaines, that the act was invalid because it em­braced more
than one object. With regard to this matter the attorney-general was silent,
and the quarrel stood as at the beginning, the governor re­fusing to recognize
the law of the legislature as binding on him. His enemies ceased to deny the
unconstitu­tionality of the law, admitting that it might prove void by reason
of non-conformity to the organic act, but they contended that until this was
shown to be true in a competent court, it was the law of the land; and to treat
it as a nullity before it had been disap­proved by congress, to which all the
acts of the legis­lature must be submitted, was to establish a dangerous
precedent, a principle striking at the foundation of all law and the public
security.

Into this controversy
the United States judges wTere necessarily drawn, the organic act
requiring them to hold a term of court, annually, at the seat of government;
any two of the three constituting a

in dress as well.
Whenever one wished to appear wall before his or her friends, they resurrected
from old chests and trunks clothes made years ago. Now, e,s one costumer in one part of the world at one time, had
made one dress, and another had made at another time another dress, an assembly
in Oregon at this time presented to a new-comer, accustomed to only one fashion
at once, a peculiar sight. Mrs Walker, wife of a missionary at Chimikane, near
Fort Colville, naving been 11 years from her clothed sisters, on coming to
Oregon City was surprised to find her dresses as much in the fashion as any of
the rest of them.’ Mrs, Wilson, Or. Sketches, MS.. 16, 17. Another says of the
missionary and pioneer families: ‘ Une lady who had been living at Clatsop
since 1846 had a parasol well preserved, at least 30 years old, with a folding
handle and an ivory ring to slip over the folds -w hen closed. Another lady had
a bonnet and shawl of nearly the same age 'which she wore to church. All these
articles were of good quality, and an evidence of past fashion and
respectability. ’ Manners as well as clothes go out of mode, and much of the
oddity Mrs Wilson discovered in an Oregon assembly in Gov. Gaines’ time was
onty manners out of fashion.

Or.
Spectator, July 29, 1851; Or. Statement, Aug. 5, 1851.,

quorum.40
On the first of December, the legislature- elect41 convened at
Salem, as the capital of Oregon, except one councilman, Columbia Lancaster, and
tour representatives, A. E. Wait, W. F. Matlock, and D. F. Brown field.
Therefore this small minority organized as the legislative assembly of Oregon,
at the territorial library room in Oregon City, was quali­fied by Judge Strong,
and continued to meet and adjourn for two weeks. Lancaster, the single coun­cilman,
spent this fortnight in making motions and seconding them himself, and
preparing a memorial to congress in which he asked for an increase in the
number of councilinen to fifteen; for the improve­ment of the Columbia River;
for a bounty of one hundred and sixty acres of land to the volunteers in the
Cayuse war; a pension to the widows and orphans of the men killed in the war;
troops to be stationed at the several posts in the territory; protection to the
immigration; ten thousand dollars to purchase a library for the university, and
a military road to Puget Sound.42

About this time the
supreme court met at Oregon City, Judges Nelson and Strong deciding to adopt

** In style Lancaster
was something of a Munchausen. “It is- true,’ he say* in ilia memorial, which
must indeed have astonished congress, ‘that the Columbia River, like the
principles of civil ami religious equality, with wilu and unconquerable fury
has burst asunder the Cascade and Coast ranges of mountains, and shattered into
fragments th< basaltic formations,’ etc. S2d Cong., 1st Sess., H. Alvic.
Doc. 14, 1-5; Or. Statiman, Jan. 13, 1852. ‘Ba­saltic formation’ then became a
sobriquet for the whig councilman among the Salem division of the legislature.
The memorial w aa signed ‘ Columbia Lan­caster, late president pro tem. of the
council, and W. T. Matlock, late speaker pro tem. of the house of representatives.’

Hist.
Os., Vol. II. 11

the governor’s view
of the seat-of-government ques­tion, while Pratt, siding with the main body of
the legislature, repaired to Salem as the proper place to hold the annual
session of the United States court. Thus a majority of the legislature convened
at Salem as the seat of government, and a majority of the su­preme court at
Oregon City as the proper capital; and the division was 'kely to prove a
serious bar to the legality of the proceedings of one or the other.43
The majority of the people were on the side of the legislature, and ready to
denounce the imported judges who had set themselves up in opposition to their
representatives. Before the meeting of the legisla­tive body the people on the
north side of the Colum­bia had expressed their dissatisfaction with Strong for
refusing to hold court at the place selected by the county commissioners,
according to an act of the legis­lature requiring them to fix the place of
holding court until the county seat should be established. The place selected
was at the claim of Sidney Ford, on the Chehalis River, whereas the judge; went
to the house of John R. Jackson, twenty miles distant, and sent a peremptory
order to the jurors to repair to the same place, which they refused to do, on
the ground that they had been ordered in the manner of slave-driving, to which
they objected as unbecoming a judge and insulting to themselves. A public
meeting was held, at which it was decided that the conduct of the judge merited
the investigation of the impeaching power.44

The proceedings of
the meeting were published about the time of the convening of the assembly, and
a correspondence followed, in which J. B. Chapman

** Francis
Ermatinger being cited to appear in a case brought against him at Oregon City,
objected to hearing ot the cause apun the ground that tht law required a
majority of the judges of the court to Ce present at the seat of government,
which was at Salem. The chief justice said in substance: ‘By the act of coming
here we have virtually decided this question.’ Or. Specta­tor, Dec. 2, 1851._.

exonerated Judge
Strong, declaring that the senti­ment of the meeting had been maliciously
misrepre­sented; Strong replying that the explanation was satisfactory to him.
But the Statesman, ever on the alert to pry into actions and motives, soon made
it appear that the reconciliation had not been between the people and Strong,
but that W. W. Chapman, who had been dismissed from the roll of attorneys in
the second district, had himself written the letter and used means to procure
his brother’s signature with the object of being admitted to practice in the
first dis­trict; the threefold purpose being gained of exculpa­ting Strong,
undoing the acts of Pratt, and replacing Chapman on the roll of attorneys.45

A majority of the
legislative assembly having con­vened at Salem, that body organized by electing
Samuel Parker president of the council, and Richard J. White, chief clerk,
assisted by Chester N. Terry and Thomas B. Micou. In the house of
representatives William M. King was elected speaker, and Benjamin F. Harding
chief clerk. Having spent several days in making and adopting rules of
procedure, on the 5th of December the representatives informed the council of
their appointment of a committee, consisting of Cole, Andersou, Drew, White, and
Chapman, to act in conjunction with a committee from the council, to draft
resolutions concerning the course pursued by the federal officers.46
The message of the representa­tives was laid on the table until the 8th. In the
mean time Deady offered a resolution in the council that, in view of the action
of Nelson and Strong, a memorial be sent to congress on the subject. Hall
followed this resolution with another, that Hamil­ton, secretary of the
territory, should be informed that the legislative assembly was organized at
Salem, and that his services as secretary were required at the

41 Or.
Statefman. Feb. 3, 1852.

*Ur. Council, Jour. 1831-2, 10.

place named, which
was laid on the table. Finally, on the 9th, a committee from both houses to
draft a memorial to congress was appointed, consisting of Curry, Anderson, and
Avery, 011 the part of the representatives, and Garrison, Waymire, and Humph­rey,
on the part of the council.47

Pratt’s opinion in
the matter was then asked, which sustained the legislature as against the
judges. Hec­tor was then ordered to bring the territorial library from Oregon
City to Salem 011 or before the first day of January 1852, which was not
permitted by tho federal officers.4*

The legislators then
passed an act re-arranging the judicial districts, and taking the counties of
Linn, Marion, and Lane from the first and attaching them to the second
district.43 This action was justified by the Statesman, on the
ground that Judge Nelson had proclaimed that he should decree all the legislation
of the session held at Salem null. On the other hand the people of the three
counties mentioned, excepting a small minority, held them to be valid; and it
was better that Pratt should administer the laws peace­fully than that Nelson
should, by declaring them void, create disorder, and cause dissatisfaction. The
latter was, therefore, left but one county, Clackamas, in which to administer
justice. But the nuilifiers, as the whig officials came now to be called, were
not

47 Or.
Council, Jovr. 1851-2,12-13. This, committee appears to Lav? been intended to
draft a memorial on general subjects, as the memorial concerning the
interference of the governor and the condition of the judiciary wad drawn by a
different committee.

4!"The
iStatesman of July 3d remarked: ‘ The territorial library, the gift of congress
to Oregon, became the property, to all intents and purposes, of the federal
clique, who refused to allow the books to be removed to Salem, and occupied the
library room daily with a librarian of the governor’s appointing.’ A full
account of the affair was published in a. little sheet called Vox PopuH,
printed at Salem, and devoted to legislative proceedings and the location
question. The first number was issued on the 18th of December 1851. The
standing advertisement ar the head of the local column was as follows: ‘ The
Vox Populi will be published and edited at Salem, 0. T., during the session of
tho legislative assembly by an association of gentlemen. ’ Thin little paper
contained a great deal that was personally disagreeable to the federal
officers.

without their
friends. The Oregonian, which was the accredited organ of the federal clique,
was loud in condemnation of the course pursued by the legisla­tors, while the
Spectator, which professed to be an in­dependent paper, weakly supported
Governor Claines and Chief Justice Nelson. Even in the legislative body itself
there was a certain minority who protested against the acts of the majority,
not on the subject of the location act alone, or the change in the judicial
districts, leaving the chief justice one county only for his district, but also
on account of the memorial to congress, prepared by the joint committee from
both houses, setting forth the condition of affairs in the territory, and
asking that the people of Oregon might be permitted to elect their governor,
secretary, and judges.

The memorial passed
the assembly almost by accla­mation, three members only voting against it, one
of them protesting formally that it was a calumnious document. The people then
took up the matter, pub­lic meetings being held in the different counties to
approve or condemn the course of the legislature, a large majority expressing
approbation of the assembly and censuring the whig judges. A bill was finally
passed calling for a constitutional convention in the event of congress
refusing to entertain their petition to permit Oregon to elect her governor and
judges. This important business having been disposed of, the legislators
addressed themselves to other matters. Lane was instructed to ask for an
amendment to the laud law; for an increase in the number of councilmen in
proportion to the increase of representatives; to procure the immediate survey
of Yaquina Bay and Umpqua River; to procure the auditing and payment of the
Cayuse war accounts; to have the organic act amended so as to allow the county
commissioners to locate the school lands in legal subdivisions or ki frac­tions
lying between claims, without reference to size or shape, where the sixteenth
and thirty-sixth sec­

tions were already
settled upon; to Lave the postal agent in Oregon60 instructed to
locate post-offices and establish mail routes, so as to facilitate correspondence
with different portions of the territory, instead of aiming to increase the
revenue of the general govern-

ooo

‘ment; to endeavor to
have the mail steamship con­tract complied with in the matter of leaving a mail
at the mouth of the Umpqua River, and to procure the change of the port of
entry on that river from Scotts- burg to Umpqua City. Last of all, the delegate
was requested to advise congress of the fact that the ter­ritorial secretary,
Hamilton, refused to pay the legis­lators their dues; and that it was feared
the money had been expended in some other manner.

Several new counties
were created at this session, raising the whole number to sixteen. An act to
create and organize Simmons out of a part of Lewis county was amended to make
it Thurston county, and the eastern limits of Lewis were altered and defined.51
Douglas was orgauized out of Umpqua county, leav­ing the latter on the coast,
while the Umpqua Valley constituted Douglas. The county of Jackson was also
created out of the southern portion of the former Umpqua county, comprising the
valley of the Rogue River,52 and it was thought the Shasta Valley.
These two new countries were attached to Umpqua for judi­cial purposes, by
which arrangement the Second Judi­cial district was made to extend from the
Columbia River to the California boundary.53

60Tlie postal agent was Nathaniel Coe, who
was made the subject of invid­ious remark, being a presidential appointee.

51The boundaries are not given in the
reports. They were subsequently changed when Washington was set off. See Or.
Local Laws, 1851-3, 13-15, 30; New Tacoma North Pacific Coast, Dec. 15, 1879.

52A resolution was passed by the assembly
that the surveyor-general be required to take measures to ascertain whether the
town known as Shasta Butte Cityj(Yreka) was in Oregon or not, and to publish
the result of his observations in the Statesman. Or. Council, Jour. 1851-2, 53.

53The first term of the United States
district court held at the new court-house in Cyntheann was iii October 185' At
this term .lames Mc­Cabe, B. F. Harding, A. B. I1. Wood, J. W.
Nesmith, and W. G. T’Vault were admitted to practice in the Second Judicial
district. McCabe was appointed prosecuting attorney, Holbrook having gone on a
visit to tho

The legislature provided
for taking the census in order to apportion representatives, and authorized the
county commissioners to locate the election districts; and to act as school
commissioners to establish com­mon schools. A board of three commissioners, Har­rison
Linnville, Sidney Ford, and Jesse Applegate, was appointed to select and locate
two township* of land to aid in the establishment of a university, ac­cording
to the provisions of the act of congress of Sep­tember 27, 1850.

An act was passed, of
which Waymire was tlio author, accepting the Oregon City claim according to the
act of donation, and also creating the office of commissioner to control and
sell the lands donated by congress for the endowment of a university; but it
became of no effect through the failure of the assem­bly to appoint such an
officer.54 Deady was the author of an act exempting the wife’s half
of a donation claim from liability for the debts of the husband, which was
passed, and which has saved the homesteads of many families from sheriff’s sale.

Among the local laws
were two incorporating the Oregon academy at Lafayette, and the first Methodist
church at Salem.55 In order to defeat the federal

States. J, W. Nesmith
was appointed master and commissioner in chancery, and J. H. Lewis commissioner
to take bail. Lewis, fainiiiarly known as ‘Unclejack,’ came to Oregon in 1847
and settled on La Creole, onafarm, later the property of John M. Scott, on
which a portion of the town of Dallas is located. Upon the resignation of H. M.
Weller, county clerk, in August 18.31, Lewis was appointed in his place, and
subsequently elected to the office by the people. His name is closely connected
with the history of the county and of Dallas.. The first term of the district
court bekl in any part of .southern Oregon was at Yonealla, in the autumn of
1852. Gibhs’ jWoles, MS., 15. The iirst courts in Jackson county about 1851-2
were held by justices of the peace called alcaldes, as in California. Rogers w
as the first, Abbott the second, it was not known at tliiis time whether Rogue
River Valley fell within the limits of California or Oregon, and the
jurisdiction being doubtful the miners improvised a government. See Popular
Tribuna U, vol. i., this series; Prim’s Judicial Affairs, MS., 7-10;
Jacksonville Dm. Times, April 8, 1871; Ilichardson’s Mississippi, 407; Overland
Monthly, xii. 225-30. Pratt left Oregon in 1856 to reside in Cal. He had done
substantial pioneer work on the bench, and owing to his conspicuous career he
had been criticised—doubtless through partisan feeling.

officers in tlieir
effort to deprive‘the legislators of the use of the territorial library, an act
was passed re­quiring a five thousand dollar bond to be given by the librarian,
who was elected by the assembly.66

Besides the memorial
concerning the governor and judges, another petition addressed to congress
asked for better mail facilities with a poet-office at each court-house in the
several counties, and a mail route direct from San Francisco to Puget Sound,
showing the increasing settlement of that region. It was asked that troops be
stationed in the Hogue River Valley, and at points between Fort Hall and The
Dalles for the protection of the immigration, which this year suffered several
atrocities at the hands of the Indians on this portion of the route; that the
pay of the revenue officers be increased;57 and that an ap­propriation
be made to continue the geological survey of Oregon already begun.

Having elected R. P.
Boise district-attorney for the first and second judicial districts, and I. N.
Fbey to the same office for the third district; reelected Bush territorial
printer, and J. D. Boon territorial treasurer/8 the assembly
adjourned on the 21st of J anuary, to carry on the war against the federal offi­cers
in a different field.59

C. Kinney, and Joel
Palmer. Or. Loral Lavs, 1851-2, 62-3. The Meth­odist church in Oregon City was*
incorporated in May 1850.

5* Ludwell
Rector was elected. The former librarian was a young man who came out with
Gaines, and placed in that position by him while he held the clerkship of the
surveyor-general’s office, and also of the supreme court. Or. Statesman, Feb.
3, 1852.

5' See
memorial of J. A. Anderson of Clatsop County in Or. Statesman, Jan, 20, 1852.

68J. D. Boon was a Wesleyan Methodist
preacher, a plain, uidearned man, honest and fervent, an immigrant of 1845. He
was for many years a resident of Salem, and held the office of treasurer for
several terms. Dcady’s Scrap

Booh, 87.

59There were in this legislature a few not
heretofore specially mentioned. J. M. Garrison, one of the men of 1843, before
spoken of, was born in Indiana in 1813, and was a farmer in Marion county.
Wilie Chapman, also of Marion, was bom in South Carolina in 1817, reared in
Tenn,, and came to Oregon i» 1847. He kept a hotel at Salem. Luther White, of
Linn, preacher and farmer, was bom in 1797 in Ky, and immigrated to Oregon in
1847. A. J. Hembree, of the immigration of 1843, was bom in Tenn. in 1813; was
a merchant and farmer in Yamhill. James S. Holman, an immigrant of 1847,

From the adjournment
of the legislative assembly great anxiety was felt as to the action of congress
in the matter of the memorial. Meanwhile the news­paper war was waged with
bitterness and no great attention to decency. Seldom was journalism more
completely prostituted to party and personal issues than in Oregon at this time
and for several years thereafter. Private character and personal idiosyn­crasies
were subjected to the most scathing ridicule.

With regard to the
truth of the allegations brought against the unpopular officials, from the
evidence be­fore mo, there is no doubt that the governor was vain and
narrow-minded; though of course his enemies ex­aggerated his weak points, while
covering his- credit­able ones,1®° and that to a degree his official
errors could not justify, heaping ridicule upon his past mili­tary career, as
well as blame upon his present guberna­torial acts,61 and accusing
him of everything dishonest,

was born in Tenn. in
1S13; a fanner in Polk. David S. Risdon was bom in Vt in 1823, came to Oregon
in 1850; lawyer by profession. John A. Ander­son was born in ICy in 1824,
reared in north Miss., and came to Oregon in 1850; lawyer and clerk in the
custom-house at Astoria. James Davidson, bom in Ky in 1702; emigrated thence in
1847; housejoiner by occupation. George E. Cole, politician, born in New York
in 1820; emigr ated thence in

1850by the way of California. He removed to
Washington in 1858, anil was sent as a delegate to congress; but afterward
returned to Oregon, and held the office of postmaster at Portland from 1873 to
1881.

60Applegate’s Views of
Hint., MS., 4S. Gaines assaulted Bush m the street on two occasions; once for
accidentally jostling him, and again for something said in the Statesman. See
issues of Jan. 27th and June 2!), 1852. A writer calling himself ‘A Kentuckian
’ had attacked the governor’s exercise of the pardoning power in the case of
Enoch Smith, reminding his excellency that Kentucky, which produced the
governor, produced also nearly all the murderers in Oregon, namely, Keen,
Kendall, Turner, the two Evermans, and Smith. ‘ Common sense, sir,’'said this
correspondent, * should teach you that the prestige of Kentucky origin will not
sustain you in your mental imbecility; and that Kentucky aristocracy, devoid of
sense and viitue, will not pass cur­rent in this intelligent market.’ Or'. Statesman,
June 19^ 1852..

61John P. Gaines was born in Augusta, Va,
in September 1795, removing to Boone county, Ky, in early youth. He volunteered
in the war of 1812, being in the battle of the Thames and several other
engagements. He rep­resented Boone county for several years in the legislature
of Ky, and was (subsequently sent to congress from 1847 to 1S49. He was elected
major of the Ky cavalry, and served in the Mexican war until taken prisoner at
Encamacion. After some months of captivity he escaped, and joining tire army
served to the end of the war. On his return from Mexico, Taylor appointed him
governor of Oregon. When his term expired he retired upon a farm in Marion
county, where he resided till his death in December 1857. S. f. Alta, Jan. 4, 1858.

from drawing his
family stores from the quarter-mas- ter’s department at Vancouver, to
re-auditing and chaoojin" the values of the certificates of the commis­sioners
appointed to audit the Cayuse war claims, and retaining the same to use for
political purposes ;f'2 the truth being that these claims
were used by both par­ties. Holbrook, the I'nited States attorney, was charged
with dishonesty 'and with influencing both the governor and judges, and
denounced as being responsible for many of their acts;63 a judgment
to which subsequent events seemed to give color.

At the regular term,
court was held in Marion county. Nelson repaired to Salem, and was met by a
committee with offensive resolutions passed at a public meeting, and with other
tokens of the spirit in which an attempt to defy the law of the territory, as
passed at the last session, would be received.64 Mean­time the
opposing parties had each had a hearing at

62Or. Statesman, Nov. 0, 1832; Icl., Tel).
26, 1853. Whether or not this was true, Lane procured an amendment to the
former acts of congress in order to make up the deficiency said to have been
occasioned by the alteration of the certificates. Cong. Globe, 1852-3, app.
341; 33d Cong., 1st Stss., II. Com. Sept. 122, 4-5.

64The
ridicule, however, 'was not all on one side. There appeared.in the Oregonian,
and afterward in pamphlet form, -with a dedication to the editors of Vox
Populi, a satire written in dramatic verse, and styled a Melodrama, illustrated
with rude wood-cuts, anil allowing considerable ability both for composition
and burlesque. This publication, both on account of its political effect and
because it was the first book written and published in Oregon of an original
nature, deserves to be remembered. It contained 32 double-col­umned pages,
divided into five acts. The persons satirized were Pratt, Deady, Lovejoy, King,
Anderson, Avery, Waymire, Parker, Thornton, Will son, Bush, Backenstos, and Waterman
of the Portland Time s. The author was William L. Adams, an immigrant of 1848,
a native of Painesville, Ohio, where he was born Feb. 1821. His parents removed
to Michigan in 1834. In 1835 Adams entered college at Canton, 111.; going
afterward to Galesburg, supporting himself by teaching in the vacations. He
finished his studies at Bothany College, Va, and became a convert to the
renowned Alexander Campbell, lr 1845 he married Olivia Goodell, a native of
Maine, and settled in Henderson County, 111., from which state he came to
Oregon. He taught school in Yamhill county, ami wa^ elected probate judge. He
was of­fered a press at Oregon City if he would establish a whig newspaper at
that place, IVhich he declined; but in 1858 he purchased the Spectator press
and helped materially to found the present republican party of Oregon. He was
rewarded with the collectorship at Astoria under Lincoln. Portland Went Shore,
May, 1870..

Washington. The
legislative memorial and commu­nications from the governor and secretary were
spread before both houses of congress.03 The same mail which
conveyed the memorial conveyed a copy of the location act, the governor’s
message on the subject, the opinion of Attorney-General Crittenden, and the
opinions of the district judges of Oregon. The presi­dent in order to put an
end to the quarrel recom­mended congress to fix the seat of government of
Oregon either temporarily or permanently, and to approve or disapprove the laws
passed at Salem, in conformity to their decision66 in favor of or
against that place for the seat of government. To disapprove the action of the
assembly would be to cause the nullification of many useful laws, and to create
pro­tracted confusion without ending the political feud. Accordingly congress
confirmed the location and other laws passed at Salem, by a joint resolution,
and the president signed it on the 4th of May.67

Thus far the
legislative party was triumphant. The imported officials had been rebuked; the
course of Governor Gaines had been commented on by many of the eastern papers
in no flattering terms; and let­ters from their delegate led them to believe
that congress might grant the amendments asked to the organic act, permitting
them to elect their governor and judges. The house did indeed on the 22d of
June pass a bill to amend,63 but no action was taken upon it in the
senate, though a motion was made to return it, with other unfinished business,
at the close of the session, to the files of the senate.

The difference
between the first Oregon delegate and the second was very apparent in the
management

of this business. Had
Thurston been charged by his party to procure the passage of this amendment,
the journals of the house would have shown some bold and fiery assaults upon
established rules, and, proofs positive that the innovation was necessary to
the peace and prosperity of the territory. On the con­trary, Lane was betrayed
by his loyalty to his per­sonal friends into seeming to deny the allegations of
his constituents against the judiciary.

The location question
led to the regular organiza­tion of a democratic party in Oregon in the spring
of 1852, forcing the whigs to nominate a ticket. The democrats carried the
election; and soon after this triumph came the official information of the
action of congress on the location law, when Gaines, with that want of tact
which rendered abortive his administra­tion, was no sooner officially informed
of the confirma­tion of the laws of the legislative assembly and the settlement
of the seat-of-government question than he issued a proclamation calling for a
special session of the legislature to commence 011 the 2Gtli of July. In
obedience to the call, the newly elected members, many of whom were of the late
legislative body, assembled at Salem, and organized by electing Deady president
of the council, and Harding speaker of the house. With the same absence of
discretion the governor in his message, after congratulating them on the settle­ment
of a vexed question, informed the legislature that it was still a matter of
grave doubt to what ex­tent the location act had been confirmed; and that eveu
had it been wholly and permanently established, it was still so defective as to
require further legisla­tion, for which purpose he had called them together,
though conscious it was at a season of the year when to attend to this
important duty would seriously in­terfere with their ordinary avocations; yet
he hoped they would be willing to make any reasonable sacri­fice for the
general good. The defects in the location

act were pointed out,
and they were reminded that no sites for the public buildings had yet been
selected, and until that was done no contracts could be let for beginning the
work; nor could any money be drawn from the sums appropriated until the
commissioners were authorized bv law to call for it. He also called their
attention to the necessity of re-arranging the judicial districts, and reminded
them of the incon­gruous coudition of the laws, recommending the ap­pointment
of a board for their revision, with other suggestions, good enough in
themselves, but. distaste­ful as coming from him under the circumstances, and
at an unusual and inconvenient time. In this mood the assembly adjourned sine
clie on the third day, with­out having transacted any legislative business, and
the seat-of'-government feud became quieted for a time.

This did not,
however, end the battle. The chief justice refused to recognize the prosecuting
attorney elected by the legislative assembly, in the absence of Amory Halbrook,
and appointed S. B. Mayre, who acted in this capacity at the spring term of
court in Clackamas county. The law of the territory re­quiring indictments to
be signed by this officer, it was apprehended that 011 account of the irregular
proceed­ings of the chief justice many indictments would be quashed. In this
condition of affairs the democratic press was ardently advocating the election
of Frank­lin Pierce, the party candidate for the presidency of the United
States, as if the welfare of the territory depended upon the executive being a
democrat. Al­though the remainder of Gaines’ administration was more peaceful,
he never became a favorite of either faction, and great was the rejoicing when
at the close of his delegateship Lane was returned to Oregon as governor, to
resign and run again for delegate, leav­ing his secretary, George L. Curry, one
of the Salem clique, as the party leaders came to be denominated, to rule
according to their promptings.

Politics
and Prospecting—Immigration—An Era
of Discovert —Ex­plorations ON THE SorTHEKN OREGON SEABOARD- -THE
CALIFORNIA Company—The Schooner ‘Samuel
Roberts’ at titl Mouths of Rogue River and the Umpqua —Meeting v, ith the
Oregon Party— Laying-out of Lands and Town Sites—Failure of the Umpqua
Company--The Finding of Gold in Various Localities- -The Mail Service—Efforts
of Thurston in Congress—Settlement of Port Orford and Discovery of Coos Bay—The
Colony at Port Oisford— Inman Attack -The T’Vault
Expedition—Massacre—Government Assistance.

While politics
occupied so much attention, the country was making long strides in material
progress. The immigration of 1850 to the Pacific coast, by the overland route
alone, amounted to between thirty and forty thousand persons, chiefly men.
Through the exertions of the Oregon delegate, in and out of con­gress, about
eight thousand were persuaded to settle in Oregon, where, they arrived after
undergoing more than the usual misfortunes. Among other things was cholera,
from which several hundred died between the Missouri River and Port Laramie.1
The crowded condition of the road, which was one cause of the pestilence,
occasioned delays with the consequent ex­haustion of supplies.2 The
famine becoming known in Portland, assistance was forwarded to The Dalles

"Says one of the
sufferers: ‘ I saw meD who had beep strong stout men walking along through the
hot desert sands, crjing like children with fatigue, hunger, and duspaii '
Cardwell's Embj. Comp']/, MS., 1,

military post, and
thence carried forward and distrib­uted by army officers and soldiers. Among
the arrivals were many children, made orphans en route, and it was in the
interest of these and like helpless ones that Frederick Way mire petitioned
congress to amend the land law, as mentioned in the previous chapter. Those who
came this year were bent on speculation more than any who had come before them;
the gold fever had unsettled deas of plodding industry and slow accumulation.
Some came for pleasure and ob­servation.3

Under the excitement
of gold-seeking and the spirit of adventure awakened by it, all the great
north-western seaboard was opened to settlement with marvellous rapidity. A
rage for discovery and pros­pecting possessed the people, and produced in a
short time marked results. From the Klamath River to Puget Sound, and from the
upper Columbia to the sea, men were spying out mineral wealth or laying plans
to profit by the operations of those who pre­ferred the risks of the
gold-fields to other and more settled pursuits. In the spring of 1850 an
association of seventy persons was formed in San Francisco to discover the
mouth of Klamath River, believed at the

•Among those-who took
the route to the Columbia River us a Henrj J. Coke, an English gentleman
travelling for pleasure. He arrived at Vancouver Oct. 22, 1850, and after a
’trief look at Oregon City wailed in the Mart/ Dare for the Islands, visiting
San Francisco in Feb. 1831, thence proceeding to Mexico and Vera Cruz, and by
the way of St Thomas back to England, sll without appearing to see much, though
he wrote a book called Coke’s Ride. Two Frenchmen, Julius Brenchly and Jules
Remy, were much interested in the Mormons, and wrote a book of not much value.
Remy and Brenchly, ii. 307-8.

F. (t. Ittam started
from Kentucky intending to settle in Oregon, but seized by cholera was kept at
Fort Laramie till the following year, when with a party of six he < ame on
to the Willamette Valley, and tinally took up Lis resi­dence at Yreka,
California. Hearn's California Sketches, MS., is a collection of observations
on the border country between California and Oregon.

Two Irishmen, Kelly
and Conway, crossed the continent this year with no other supplies than thev
carried in their haversacks, depending on their rilles for food. They were only
three months in travelling from Kansas to the Sac­ramento Valley, which they
entered before going to Oregon. Quigley's Irixh Race, ‘216-17. During xiug. and
Sept. of this year Oregon was visited by the French traveller Saint Amant, who
made some unimportant notes for the French government. Certain of his
observations were apociyphal. See Saint Ama/il, 139-391.

time, owing to an
error of Fremont’s, to be in Oregon. The object was wholly speculative, and
included be­sides hunting for gold the opening of a road to the mines of
northern California, the founding of towns at the most favorable points on the
route, with other enterprises. In May thirty-live of the shareholders, and some
others, set out in the schooner Samuel Rob­erts to explore the coast near the
Oregon boundary. None of them were accustomed to hardships, and not more than
three .knew anything about sailing a ship. Lyman, the captain and owner, was
not a sailor, but left the management of the vessel to Peter Mackie, a young
Canadian who understood his business, and who subsequently for many years
sailed a steamship be­tween San Francisco and Portland. Lyman’s second mate was
an Englishman named Samuel E. Smith, also a fair seaman; while the rest of the
crew were volunteers from among the schooner’s company.

The expedition was
furnished with a four-pound carronade and small arms. For shot they brought
half a ton of nails, screws, hinges, and other bits of iron gathered from the
ashes of a burned hardware store. Provisions were abundant, and two surveyors,
with their instruments, were among the company/ which boasted several college
graduates and men of parts.6

By good fortune,
rather than by any knowledge or superior management, the schooner passed safely
up the coast as far as the mouth of Rogue River, but without having seen the
entrance to the Klamath, which thyy looked for north of its right latitude. A

‘These were Nathan
Schofield, A. M., author of a work on surveying, and Socrates Schofield his
son, both from near Norwich, Connecticut. Schofield Creek in 1 )ouglas county
is named after the laiter.

5 Besides
the Schofields there were in the exploring company Ileman \\ m- chester, and
brother, editor of the Pacific News of San Francisco; Dr Ilenry 1’ayne, of New
York; Dr E. R. Fiske, of Massachusetts; S. S. Maun, a gradu­ate of Harvard
University; Dr J. W. Drew, of New Hampshire; Barney, of New Yoik; Woodbury, of
Connecticut; C.T. Hopkins, of San Francisco; Henry H. Woodward, Patrick
Flanagaa, Anthony Ten Eyck, A. G. Able, James K. Kelly, afterward a leading man
in Oregon politics; Dean, Tierman, Evans, and Knight, whose names have been
preserved.

boat with six men
sent to examine the entrance was overturned in the river and two were drowned,
the others being rescued' by Indians who pulled them ashore to strip them of
their clothing. The schooner meantime was following in, and by the aid of
glasses it was discovered that the shore was populous with excited savages
running hither and thither with such display of ferocity as would have deterred
the vessel from entering had not those on board determined to rescue their
comrades at any hazard. It was high tide, and by much manoeuvring the schooner
was run over the bar in a fathom and a half of water. The shout of relief as
they entered the river was answered by yells from the shore, where could be
seen the survivors of the boat’s crew, naked and half dead with cold and
exhaustion, being freely handled by their captors. As soon as the vessel was
well inside, two hundred natives appeared and crowded on board, the explorers
being unable to prevent them. The best they could do was to feign indifference
and trade the old iron for peltries. When the natives had nothing left to
exchange for coveted articles, they ex­hibited an ingenuity as thieves that
would have done credit to a London pickpocket. Says one of the com­pany: “Some
grabbed the cook’s towels, one bit a hole in the shirt of one of our men to get
at some beads he had deposited there, and so slyly, too, that the latter did
not perceive his loss at the time. One fellow stole the eye-glass of the ship’s
quadrant, and another made way with the surveyor’s note-book. Some started the
schooner’s copper with their teeth; and had actually made some progress in
stripping her as she lay high and dry at low water, before they were found out.
One enterprising genius undertook to get possession of the chain and anchor by
sawing off the former under water with his iron knife! Con­scious of guilt, and
fearing lest we might discover the mischief he intended us, he would now and
then throw a furtive glance toward the bow of the vessel, to the

Hiex. Oe.. Vol. II 12

great amusement of
those who were watching him through the hawse pipes.”

An examination more
laborious than profitable was made of the country thereabout, which seemed to
offer no inducements to enterprise sutficient to war­rant the founding of a
settlement for any purpose. Upon consultation it was decided to continue the
voyage as far north as the Umpqua River, and hav­ing dispersed the tenacious
thieves of Rogue River by firing among them a quantity of their miscellaneous
ammunition, the schooner succeeded in getting to sea again without accident.

Proceeding up the
coast, the entrance to Coos Bay was sighted, but the vessel being becalmed
could not enter. While awaiting wind, a canoe approached from the north,
containing Umpquas, who offered to show the entrance to their river, which was
made the 5th of August. Two of the party went ashore in the canoe, returning at
nightfall with reports that caused the carronade to belch forth a salute to the
rocks and woods, heightened by the roar of a simultaneous dis­charge of small
arms. A flag made on the voyage was run up the mast, and all was hilarity on
board the Samuel Roberts. On the 6th, the schooner crossed the bar, being the
first vessel known to have entered the river in safety. On rounding into the
cove called Winchester Bay, after one of the explorers, they came upon a party
of Oregonians; Jesse Applegate, Levi Scott, and Joseph Sloan, who were
themselves ex­ploring the valley of the Umpqua with a purpose similar to their
own.8 A boat was sent ashore and a joyful meeting took place in
which mutual encourage­ment and assistance were promised. It was found that
Scott had already taken a claim about twenty-six miles up the river at the
place which now bears the name of Scottsburg, and that the party had come down
to the mouth in the expectation of meeting

tlierc the United
States surveying schooner Ewing, in the hope of obtaining a good report of the
harbor. But on learning the designs of the California com- ' pany, a hearty
cooperation was offered on one part, and willingly accepted on the other
Another cir­cumstance in favor of the Umpqua for settlement was the peaceable
disposition of the natives, who since the days when they murdered Jedediah
Smith’s party had been brought under the pacifying influ­ences of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, and sustained a good reputation as compared with the other coast
tribes.

On the morning of the
7th the schooner proceeded up the river, keeping the channel by sounding from a
small boat in advance, and finding it one of the love­liest of streams;7
at least, so thought the explorers, one of whom afterward became its historian.8
Finding a good depth of water, with the tide, for a distance of eighteen miles,
the boat’s crew became negligent, and failing to note a gravelly bar at the
foot of a bluff a thousand feet in height the schooner grounded in eight feet
of water, and when the tide ebbed was left stranded.9

However, the small
boat proceeded to the foot of the rapids, where Scott was located, this being
the head of tide-water, and the vessel was afterward brought safely hither. In
consideration of their services in

7It is the
largest river between the Sacramento and the Columbia. ‘Ves­sels of 800 tons
can enter.’ Mrs Victor, in Par. Ilural Press, Nov. 8, J879. ‘The Umpqua is
sometimes supposed to be the river discovered by Flores in 1003, and afterwards
referred to as the “lliver of the West.’” Davidson's Coast Pilot, 126.

f This was
Charles T. Hopkins, who wrote an account of the Umpqua ad­venture for the S. F.
Pioneer, vol. i. ii., a periodical published in the early days of California
magazine literature. I have drawn my account partly from this source, as well
as from (ribbs’ Note* on Or. Hist., MS., 2-3, and from Historical
Correspondence, MS., by S. S. Mann, S. F. Chadwick, H. H. Wood­ward. members of
the Umpqua company, and also from other sources, among which are Williams’ S. H
. Oregon, MS., 2-3.; Letters of 1). J. Lyons, and the Oregon Spectator, Sept.
5, 1850; Deady’s Scrap-Book, 83; S. F. Evening Pica­yune, Sept. 6, 1850.

9Gibbs says: ‘The passengers endeavored
to lighten the cargo by pouring the vessel’s store of liquors down their
throats, from which hilarious proceed­ing the shoal took the namo of Brandy
Bar.’ Notes, MS., 4.

opening the river to
navigation and commerce, Scott presented the company with one hundred and sixty
acres of his land-claim, or that portion lying below the rapids, for a town
site. Affairs having progressed so well the members of the expedition now
organized regularly into a joint stock association called the “Umpqua Town-site
and Colonization Land Com­pany,” the property to be divided into shares and
drawn by lot among the original members. They divided their forces, and aided
by Applegate and Scott proceeded to survey and explore to and through the
Umpqua Valley. One party set out for the ferry on the north branch of the
Umpqua, and another for the main valley,10 coming out at Applegate’s
settlement of Yoncalla, while a third remained with the schooner. Three weeks
of industrious search enabled them to select four sites for future settlements.
One at the mouth of the river was named Umpqua City, and contained twelve
hundred and eighty acres, being situated on both sides of the entrance. The
second location was Scottsburg. The third, called Elkton, was situated on Elk
River at its junction with the Umpqua. The fourth, at the ferry above
mentioned, was named Winchester, and was purchased by the company from the
original claimant, John Aiken, who had a valuable property at that place, the
natural centre of the valley.

Having made these
selections according to the best judgment of the surveyors, some of the company
remained, while the rest reembarked and returned to San Francisco. In October
the company having sold quite a number of lots were able to begin operations in
Oregon. They despatched the brig Kate Ileath, Captain Thomas Wood, with milling
machinery, mer ­chandise, and seventy-five emigrants. On this vessel were also
a number of zinc houses made in Boston,

10Oaklard, a tew miles south of Youealla,
was laid out in 1849 by Chester Lyman, since a proiessor at Yalti College. This
ia the oldest surveyed town in the Umpcjua Valley. Or. Sketches, SIS., 3.

which were put up cm
the site of Umpqua City. In charge of the company’s business was Addison C.
Gibbs, afterward governor uf Oregon, who was on his way to the territory when
he fell in with the projectors of the scheme, and accepted a position and shares.11

Thus far all went
well, But the Umpqua Com­pany were destined to bear some of those misfortunes
Avdiich usually attend like enterprises. The passage of the Oregon land law in
September was the first blow, framed as it was to prevent companies or non­residents
from holding lands for speculative purposes, in consequence of which no patent
could issue to the company, and it could give no title to the lands it was
offering for sale. They might, unrebuked, have carried on a trade begun in
timber; but the loss of one vessel loaded with piles, and the ruinous detention
of another, together with a fall of fifty per cent in the price of their
cargoes, soon left the contractors in debt, and an assignment was the result,
an event hastened by the failure of the firm in San Francisco with which the
company had deposited its funds. Five months after the return of the Samuel
Roberts to San Francisco, not one of those who sailed from the river in her was
in any manner connected with the Umpqua scheme. The company in California
having ceased to furnish means, those left in Oregon were compelled to direct
their efforts toward solving the problem of how to live.12

11D. C.
Underwood, who had become a member of the association, was a passenger on the
Kate Heath, a man well known in business and political cir­cles in the state.

13 Drew
remained at Umpqua City, where he was subsequently Indian agent for many years,
and where he held the office of collector of customs and subsequently of
inspector. He was unmarried. Marysville Appeal, Jan. 20, 18G4. Winchester
remained in Oregon, residing at Scottsburg, then at Rose* burg and Empire City.
He was a lawyer, and a favorite with the bar of the Second Judicial district. 1
He was generous in dealing, liberal in thought, of entire truth, and absolutely
incorruptible.’ Salem Mercury, Nov. 10, 1876. Gibbs took a land claim seven
miles above the mouth of the Umpqua, laying out the town of Gardiner, and
residing there for several years, during which time he returned to the east and
married Margaret M. Watkins, of Erie county, N. Y. Addison Crandall Gibbs,
afterward governor of Oregon, wTas born at East Otto, Cattaraugus
county, X. Y., July 9, 1S25, and educated at the New York State Normal school.
He became a teacher, and studied law,

But although the
Umpqua Company failed to carry out its designs, it had greatly benefited
southern Oregon by surveying and mapping Umpqua harbor, the notes of the survey
being published, with a report of their explorations and discoveries of rich
agricul­tural lands, abundant and excellent timber, valuable water-power, coal
and gold mines, fisheries and stone-

being admitted to the
bar in May 1849 at Albany. He is descended from a long line of lawyers in
England; his great grandfather was a commissioned officer in the revolutionary
war. In Oregon he acted well his part of pioneer, carrying the mail in person,
or by deputy, from Yoncalla to Scottsburg for a period of four years through
the floods and storms of the wild coast mount­ains, never missing a trip. He
was elected to the legislature of 1801-2. When Gardiner was made a port of
entry, Gibbs became collector of customs for the southern district of Oregon.
He afterward removed to the Umpqua Valley, and in 1S58 to Portland, where he
continued the practice of law. He was ever a true friend of Oregon, taking a
great personal interest in her de­velopment and an intelligent pride in her
history. He has spared no pains in giving me information, which is embodied in
a manuscript entitled. Motes on the History of Oregon.

Stephen Fowler
Chadwick, a native of Connecticut, studied law in New York, where he was
admitted to practice in 1850, immediately after which he set out for the
Pacific coast, joining the Umpqua Company and arriving in Oregon just in time
to be left a stranded speculator on the beautiful but lonely bank of that
picturesque river. When tiie settlement of the valley increased he practised
his profession with honor and profit, being elected county and probate judge,
and also to represent Douglas county in the con vention which framed the state
constitution. He was presidential elector in 1804 and 1868, being the messenger
to carry the vote to Washington in the latter year. He was elected secretary of
state in 1870, which office he held for eight years, becoming governor for the
last two years by the resignation of Grover, who was elected to the U. S.
senate. Governor Chadwick was also a distinguished member of the order of
freemasons, having been grand master in the lodge of Perfection, and having
received the 33d degree in the Scotch rite, as well as having been for 17 years
chairman of the committee on foreign correspondence for the grand lodge of
Oregon, and a favorite orator of th< order. He married in 1856 Jane A. Smith
of Douglas county, a native of V irginia, by whom he has two daughters and two
sous. Of a lively und ami­able temper and courteous manner, he has always
enjoyed a popularity inde­pendent of official eminence. His contributions to
this history consist of letters and a brief statement of the Public Records of
the Capitol in manuscript. 1 shall never forget his kindness to me during my
visit to Oregon in 1S7S. James K. Kelly was born in Center county, Penn., in
1819, educated at Prince­ton college, N. J., and studied law at Carlisle law
school, graduating in 1842, and practising in Lewiston, Penn., until 1849, when
he started for California by way of Mexico.. Not finding mining to his taste,
he embarked his fortunes in the Umpqua Company. He went to Oregon City and soon
came into notice. He was appointed code commissioner in 1853, as I ha\e
elsewhere mentioned, and was in the same year elected to the council, of which
he was a member for four years anil president for two sessions. As a military
mail he figured con­spicuously in the Indian wars. He was a member of the
constitutional con­vention in 1857, and of the state senate in 1800. In 1870 he
was sent to the U. S. senate, and in 1878 was appointed chief justice of the
supreme court. His political career will be more particularly noticed m the
progress of thia history.

quarries. These
accounts brought population to that part of the coast, and soon vessels began
to ply be­tween San Francisco and Scottsburg. Gardiner, named after the captain
of the Bostonian, which was wrecked in trying to enter the river in 1850,
sprang up in 1851. In that year also a trail was constructed for pack-animals
across the mountains to Winchester,18 which became the county seat
of Douglas county, with a United States land office. From Winchester the route
was extended to the mines in the Umpqua and Hogue Iliver valleys. Long trains
of mules, laden with goods for the mining region filed daily along the
precipitous path which was dignified with the name of road, their tinkling
bells striking cheerily the ear of the lonely traveller plodding his weary way
to the gold-fields. Scottsburg, which was the point of departure for the
pack-trains, became a commercial entrepot of importance.14 The
influence of the Ump­qua interest was sufficient to obtain from congress at the
session of 1850-51 appropriations for mail ser­vice by sea aud land, a
light-house at the mouth of the river, and a separate collection district.15

As the mines were
opened permanent settlements were made upon the farming lands of southern
Oregon, and various small towns were started from 1851 to

15Winchester was laid out by Addison C.
Flint, who was in Chile in 1845, to assist in the preliminary survey of the
railroad subsequently built by the infamous Harry Meigs. In 1849 Flint came to
California, and the following ytar to Oregon to make surveys for the Umpqua
Company. He also laid out the town of Roseburg in 1851 for Aaron Rose, where he
took up his residence in 1857. Or. Sketches, MS., 2-4.

A Allan,
McKinlay, and McTavish of the Hudson’s Bay Company opened a trading-house at
Seottsburg; and Jesse Applegate also turned merchant. Applegate’s manner of
doing business is described by himself in Burnett’s IRecollections of a
Pioneer: ‘1 sold goods on credit to those who needed them most, not to those
who were able to pay, lost §30,000, and quit the business.’

15The steamers carrying the maili from
Panamd to the Columbia lliver* were under contract to stop at the Umpqua, anil
one entry was made, but the steamer was so nearly wrecked that no further
attempt followed. The i merchants and others at Scottsburg and the lower towns,
as well as at AViuchester, had to wait for their letters and papers to go to
Portland and be sent up the valley by the bi-montlily mail to Yoncalla, a delay
which was severely felt and impatiently resented. The legislature did not fail
to repre­sent the matter to congress, and Thurston did all he could to satisfy
his con­stituents, though he could not compel the steamship company to keep its
contract or congress to annul it.

1853 in the region
south of Winchester,10 notably the town of Roseburg, founded by
Aaron Hose,17 who purchased the claim from its locators for a horse,
and a poor one at that. A flouring mill was put iu operation in the northern
part of Umpqua Valley, and another erected during the summer of 1851 at Win­chester.18
A saw-mill soon followed in the Rogue River Valley,19 many of which
improvements were traceable, more or less directly, to the impetus given to
settlement by the Umpqua Company.

In passing back and
forth to California, the Oregon miners had not failed to observe that the same
soil and geological structure characterized the valleys north of the supposed'20
northern boundary of California that

16The first house ii Rogue River Valley was
built at the ferry on Rogue River established by Joel Perkins. The place was
first known as Perkins’ Ferry, then Long’s Ferry, and lastly as Vannoy’s. The
next settlement was at the mouth of Evans creek, a tributary of Rogue River, so
called from a trader named Davis Evans, a somewhat bad character, who located
there. The third was the claim of one Bills, also of doubtful repute. Then came
the farm of N". C. Dean at Willow Springs, five miles north of
Jacksonville, and near it the claim of A. A. Skinner, who b«ilt a house in the
autumn of 1851. South of Skinner’s, on the road to Yreka, was the place of
Stone and Points on Wagner creek, and beyond, toward the head of the valley,
those of Dunn, Smith, Russell, Barron, and a few others. Duncan’« Settle­ment,
MS., 5-6. The author of this work, L. J. C. Duncan, was born in Tennessee in
1818. He came to California in 1849, and worked in the Mari­posa miuca until
the autumn of 1850, when, becoming iil, he came to Oregon for a change of
climate and more settled society. In the aatumn of 1851 he determined to try
mining iu the Shasta. Valley, and also to secure, a land claim in the Rogue
River Valley. This he did, locating on Bear or Stuart creek,

12miles south-east of Jacksonville, where he
resided from 1851 to 1858, during ■which time he mined
on Jackson’s creek. He shared in the Indian wars
which troubled the settlements for a number of years, finally establishing
himself in Jacksonville in the practice of the law, and being elected to the
office of judge.

vDead?/’*Hist.
On, MS., 72-3.

18Or. Spectator, Feb* 10, 1852.

19J. A. Cardwell was born in Tennessee in
1827, emigrated from Iowa to Oregon in 1850, spent the first winter in the
service of Quartermaster Ingalls at Fort Vancouver, and started in the spring
for California with 26 others to engage in mining. After a skirmish with the
Rogue River Indians and vari­ous other adventures they reached the mines at
Yreka, where they worked until the dry season forced a suspension of
operations, when Cardwell, with E. Emery, J. Emery, and David Hurley, went to
the present site of Ashland in the Rogue River Valley, and taking up a claim
erected the first saw-mill in that region early in 1S52. I have derived much
valuable information from Mr Cardwell concerning southern Oregon history, which
is contained in a manuscript entitled Emigrant Company, in Mr Cardwell’s own
hand, of the incidents of the immigration of 1S30, the settlement of the Rogue
River Val* ley, and the Indian wars which followed.

20As late as 1854 the boundary was still in
doubt. ‘Intelligence has just

were found in the
known mining' regions, and prospect­ing was carried on to a considerable extent
early in 1850. In June two hundred miners were at work in the Umpqua Valley.*1
But little gold was found at this time, and the movement was southward, to
Rogue River and Klamath. According to the best authori­ties the first discovery
o* any of the tributaries of the Klamath was in the spring of 1850 at Salmon
Creek. In July discoveries were made on the main Klamath, ten miles above the
mouth of Trinity River, and in September on Scott River. In the spring of 1851
gold was found in the Shasta Valley,22 at various places,

boon received from
the surveying party under T. P. Robinson, county sur veyor, who was
commissioned by the governor to survey the boundary line between California and
Oregon. The party were met on the mountains by several gentlemen of this city,
whose statement can be relied on, when they were informed by some of the
gentlemen attached to the expedition, that the disputed tenitory belonged to
Oregon, and not California, as was generally supposed. This territory includes
two of the finest districts in the country, Sailor’s Diggings and Althouse
Creek, besides some other minor places not of much importance to either. The
announcement has caused some excitement in that neighborhood, as the miners do
not like to be so suddenly transported from California to Oregon. They have
heretofore voted both in California and Oregon, although in the former state it
has caused several contested election cases, and refused to pay taxes to
either. It is also rumored around the city, fur which we will not vouch, that
Yreka is in Oregon. But we hardly think it possible, from the observations
heretofore taken by scientific men, which brings Yreka 15 miles within the
line.’ Cresent City Herald, in 1). Alta Cala., Juue 28, 1854.

21S'. F. Courier, July 10, 1850.

22In the early .summer of 1S50 Gen. Line,
with a small party of Orego­nians, viz. John Kelly, Thomas Brown, Martin
Angell, Samuel and John Simondson, and Lane’s Indian servant, made a discovery
on the Shasta river near where the town of Yreka was afterward built. The
Indians proving troublesome the party removed to the diggings on the upper
Sacramento, but noi finding gold as plentiful as expected set out to prospect
on Pit River, from which place they were driven by the Indians back to the
Sacramento where they wintered, going in February 1851 to Scott River, from
which locality Lane was recalled to the Willamette Valley to run for the office
of delegate to congress. Speaking of the Pit river tribe, Lane says: ‘The Pit
River Indians were great thieves and murderers. They actually stole the
blankets off the men in our camp, though I kept one man on guard all the time.
They stole our best horse, tied at the head of my bed, which consisted of a
blanket spread on the ground, with my saddle for a pillow. They sent an arrow
into a miner because he happened to be rolled in his blanket so that they could
not pull it from him. They caught Driscoll when out prospecting, and were
hurrying him off into the mountains when my Indian boy gave the ala rm and

Iwent to his rescue. He was so frightened
he could neither move nor speak, which condition of their captive impeded their
progress. When I appeared he fell down in a swoon. 1 pointed my gun, which
rested on my six-shooter, ami ordered the Indians to leave. While they
hesitated and were trying to flank me my Indian boy brought the canoe,
alongside tho shore, on seeing

notably on
Greenhorn Creek, Yreka, and Humbug Creek.•

The Oregon miners
were by this time satisfied that gold existed north of the Siskiyou range.
Their ex­plorations resulted in finding the metal on Big Bar of Kogue River,
and in the canon of Josephine Creek. Meanwhile the beautiful and richly grassed
valley of Hogue River became the paradise of packers, who grazed their mules
there, returning to Scottsburg or the Willamette for a fresh cargo. In February
1852 one Sykes who worked on the place of A. A. Skinner found gold on Jackson
Creek, about on the west line of the present town of Jacksonville, and soon
after two packers, Cluggage and Pool, occupying themselves with prospecting
while their animals were feeding, discovered Rich Gulch, half a mile north of
Sykes’ discovery. The wealth of these mines'23 led to an irruption
from the California side of the Siskiyou, and Willow Springs five miles north
of Jacksonville, Pleasant Creek, Applegate Creek, and many other localities
became deservedly famous, yielding well for a number of years.

Every miner, settler,
and trader in this remote in­terior region was anxious to hear from friends,
home, and of the great commercial world without. As I have before said Thurston
labored earnestly to show congress the necessity of better mail facilities for
Ore­gon,21 the benefit intended to have been conferred

which they beat a
hasty retreat thinking I was about to be reenforced. Dris­coll would never
cross to the east side of the river after his adventure. ’ Lane’s
Autobiography, MS., lO-t-5.

21In October 1845 the postmaster-general
advertised for proposals to carry the United States mail from New York by
Habana to the Chagre River and back; with joint or separate offers to extend
the transportation to Panama and up the 1’aeitic to the mouth of the Columbia,
and thence to the Haw aiian Islands, the senate recommending a mail route to
Oregon. Between 1846 and 1848 the government thought of the plan of encouraging
by subsidies the

having been diverted
almost entirely to California by the exigencies of the larger population and
business of that state with its phenomenal growth.

The postal agent
appointed at San Francisco for the Pacific coast discharged his duty by
appointing postmasters,2u but further than sending the mails to
Oregon on sailing vessels occasionally lie did nothing for the relief of the
territory.26 Not a mail steamer appeared on the Columbia in 1849.
Thurston wrote home in December that he had been hunting up the documents
relating to the Pacific mail service, and the reason why the steamers did not
come to Astoria. The result of his search was the discovery that the then late
secretary of the navy had agreed with Aspinwall that if he should send the
Oregon mail and take the same, once a month, by sailing vessel, “at or near the
mouth of the Klamath River,’- and would touch at San Francisco,
Monterey, and San Diego free of cost to the government, he should not be
required to ruu steamers to Oregon till after re­ceiving six months’ notice.27

Here were good faith
and intelligence indeed! The

establishment of a
line of steamers between Panamd and Oregon, by way of some port in California.
At length Howland and Aspinwall agreed to carry the mails once a month, and to
put on a line of three steamers of from 1,000 to 1,200 tons, giving cabin
accommodations for about 25 passengers, as many it was thought as would
probably go at one time, the remainder of the vessel being devoted to freight.
Crosby's statement, MS., 3. Three steamers were constructed under a contract
with the secretary of the. navy, viz.: the Cali­fornia, 1,400 tons, -with a
single engine of 2o0 horse-power, handsomely Un­ished and carrying 46 cabin and
a hundred steerage passengers; the Panamd of 1,100 tons, and the Oregon of
1,200 tuns, similarly built and furnished. SSd Cong., 1st Sess., S. Doc. 50;
Hon. Polynesian, April 7, 1849; Otis’ Panamd li. I!. The California left port
in the autumn of 184S, arriving at Val­paraiso on the 20th of December,
seventy-four days from New York, proceed­ing thence to Callao ami Panamd, where
passengers from New York to Habana and Chagre were awaiting her, and reaching
San Francisco on the 28th of February 1849, where she was received with great
enthusiasm. She brought on this first trip over 18*000 letters. S. F. Alta
California in Polynesian, April 14, 1849. See also Hist. Cal. and Cal. Inter
Poct'la, this Series.

then undiscovered
mouth of the Klamath Ilivor for a distributing point for the Oregon mail!
Thurston with characteristic energy soon procured the promise of the secretary
that the notice should be immediately given, and that after June 1850 mail
steamers should go “not only to Nisqually, but to Astoria.”23 The
postmaster-general also recommended the reduction of the postage to California
and Oregon to take effect by the end of June 1851.29

At length in June
1850 the steamship Carolina, Captain R. L. Whiting, made her first trip to Port­land
with mails and passengers.30 She was withdrawn in August and placed
on the Panama route in order to complete the semi-monthly communication called
for between that port and San Francisco. On the 1st of September the California
arrived at Astoria and departed the same day, having lost three days in a heavy
fog off the bar. On the 27th the Panama ar­rived at Astoria, and two days later
the Seagull,51 a steam propeller. On the 24th of October the
Oregon brought up the mail for the first time, and was an object of much
interest on account of her name.32 There was no regularity in
arrivals or departures until the coming from New Yoik of the Columbia,

28 This
quotation refers to an effort on the part of certain persons to make Nisqually
the point of distribution of the mails. The proposition was sus­tained by
Wilkes and Sir George Simpson. ‘If they get ahead of me,’ said Thurston in his
letter, ‘they will rise early and work late.’

2931st
Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 1, 408, 410. This favor also nai ' chiefly the
result of the representations of the Oregon delegate. A single letter from
Oregon to the States cost 40 cents; from California 12J cents, before the
reduction which made the postage uniform for the Pacific coast and fixed it at
six ccnts a single sheet, or double the rate in the Atlantic states. Or.
Statesman, May 9, 1851.

SuMcCracken's
Early Steamboativg, MS., 7; Salem Directory, 1S74, 95; Portland Oregonian, Jan.
13, 1872. There was an incongruity in the law establishing the mail service,
which provided for a semi-monthly mail to the river Chagre, but only a monthly
mail from l’anama up the coast. Kept, of P. M. Gen., in Slst Cong., 2d Sess.,
II. Ex. Doc. 1, 410; Or. Spectator, Aug. 8, 1S50.

31The Seagull was wrecked on the Humboldt
bar on her passage to Ore­gon, Feb. 20, 1S52. Or. Statesman, March 2, 1852.

32Or. Spectator, Oct. 31, 1850. The Oregon
was transformed into a sail­ing vessel after many years of service, and was
finally sunk in the strait of Juan de Fuca by collision with the bark Germania
in 1880. Her commander when she first came to Oregon was Lieut. Charles P.
Patterson of the navy.

brought out by
Lieutenant G. W. Totten of the navy, in March 1851;, and afterward commanded by
William Dali.33

The Columbia supplied
a great deficiency in com­munication with California and the east, though
Oregon was still forced to be content with a monthly mail, while California had
one twice a month. The postmaster-general’s direction that Astoria should be
made a distributing office was a blunder that the delegate failed to rectify.
Owing to the lack of navi­gation by steamers on the rivers, Astoria was but a
remove nearer than San Francisco, and while not quite so inaccessible as the
mouth of the Klamath, was nearly so. When the post-routes were advertised, no
bids were offered for the Astoria route, and when the mail for the interior was
left at that place a special effort must be made to bring it to Portland.34

Troubled by reason of
this isolation, the people of Oregon had asked over and over for increased mail
facilities, and as one of the ways of obtaining them, and also of increasing
their commercial opportunities, had prayed congress to order a survey of the
coast, its bays and river entrances. Almost immediately

83 4 The
Columbia was commenced in New York by a man named Hunt, who lived in Astoria,
under an agreement with Coffin, Lownsdale, and Chap­man, the proprietors, of
Portland, to furnish a certain amount of money to build a vessel to run between
San Francisco and Astoria. Hunt went east, and the keel of the vessel was laid
in 1849, and he got her on the ways and ready to launch when his money gave
out, and the town proprietors of Port­land did not send any more. So she was
sold, and Howland and Aspinwall bought her for this trade themselves. . .She
ran regularly once a month from San Francisco to Portland, carrying the mails
and passengers.’ She was very stanchly built, of 700 tons register, would carry
50 or 60 cabin passengers, with about as many in the steerage, and cost
$150,000. N. Y. Tribune, in Or, Spectator, Dec. 12, 1850; Deady's Hist. Or.,
MS., 10-11.

34 The
postal agent appointed in 1851 was Nathaniel Coe, a man of high character and
scholarly attainments, as well as religious habits. He was a native of
Morristown, New Jersey, bom September 11, 1788, a whig, and a member of the
Baptist church. In his earlier years he represented Alleghany county, New York,
in the state legislature. When his term of office in Oregon expired he remained
in the country, settling on the Columbia River near the mouth of Hood River, on
the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains. ‘His mental energy was such, that
neither the rapid progress of the sciences of our time, nor his own great age
of eighty, could check his habits of study. The ripened fruits of scholarship
that resulted appeared as bright as ever even in the last weeks of his life. He
died at Hood River, his residence, October 17, 1868/ Vancouver Register, Nov.
7, ISOS; Dalles Mountaineer, Oct. 23, 1868.

upon the organization
of the territory, Professor A. I). Bache, superintendent of the United States
coast survey, was notified that he would he expected to commence the survey of
the coast of the United States on the Pacific. A corps of officers was se­lected
and divided into two branches, one party to conduct the duties of the service
on shore, and the other to make a hydrographical survey.

The former duty
devolved upon assistant-superin- tendent, James S. Williams, Brevet-Captain 1).
P. Hammond, and Joseph S. Ruth, sub-assistant. The naval survey was conducted
by Lieutenant W. P. McArthur, in the schooner Ewing, which was com­manded by
Lieutenant Washington Bartlett of the United States navy. The time of their
advent on the coast was an unfortunate one, the spring of 1849, when the gold
excitement was at its height, prices of labor and living extortionate, and the
difficulty of restraining men on board ship, or in any service, excessive, the
officers having to stand guard over the men,85 or to put to sea to
prevent desertions.

So many delays were
experienced from these and other causes that nothing was accomplished in 1 849,
and the Ewing wintered at the Hawaiian Islands, returning to San Francisco for
her stores in the spring, and again losing some of her men. On the 3<1 of
April, Bartlett succeeded in getting to sea with men enough to work the vessel,
though some of these were placed in irons on reaching the Columbia River. The
first Oregon newspaper which fell under Bart­lett’s eye contained a letter of
Thurston’s, in which he reflected severely on the surveying expedition for
neglect to proceed with their duties, which was sup­plemented by censorious
remarks by the editor. To

3:; A mutiny
occurred in ■which
Passed Midshipman Gibson was nearly drowned in San Francisco Bay by five of the
seamen. They escaped, w ere pursued, captured, ami sentenced to death by a
general court-martial Tw'O were hanged on board the Ewing and the others on the
St Mary’s, a ship of the U. S. squadron. Letter of Lieut. Bartlett, in Or.
Spectator, June 27, 1850; Lawson’n Autohiog., MS., 2; Davidson’s Biography.

these attacks
Bartlett replied through the same medium, and took occasion to reprove the
Oregonians for their lack of enterprise in failing to sustain a pilot service
at the mouth of the Columbia, which service, since the passage of the pilotage
act, had received little encouragement or support,88 and also for
giving countenance to the desertion of his men.

The work accomplished
by the Ewing during the summer was the survey of the entrance to the Colum­bia,
the designation of places for buoys to mark the channel, of a site for a
liglit-house on Cape Disap­pointment, and the examination of the coast south of
the Columbia. The survey showed that the “rock- ribbed and iron-bound” shore of
Oregon really was a beach of sand from Point Adams to Cape Arago, a distance of
one hundred and sixty-live miles, only thirty-three miles of that distance
being cliffs of rock where the ocean touched the shore. From Cape Arago to the
forty-second parallel, a distance of eiglity-five miles, rock was found to
predominate,

36 Capt
White, a Xew York pilot, conceiv'd! the idea of establishing himself and a
corps of competent assistants at the mouth of the Columbia, thereby conferring
a great benefit on Oregon commerce, anti presumably a reasonable amount of
reward upon himself. But his venture, like a great many others prt jected from
the other side of the continent, was a failure. On bring­ing his fine
pilot-boat, the Win, O. Hag&taff, up the coast, in September 1849, he
attempted to enter Rogue River, but got aground on the bar, was attacked by the
Indians, and himself ami associates, with their men, driven into tho mountains,
where they wandered for eighteen days in terrible destitution before reaching
Fort Umprjua, at which post they received succor. The Ilw/staff was robbed and
burned; her place being supplied by another boat called the Mary Taylor, The
Pioneer, i. 351; Davidson's Coast Pilot, 112­13; Williams’ S. W. Or., MS. 2. It
was the neglect of the Oregonians to make good the loss of Captain White, or a
portion of it, to which Bartlett referred. For the year during which White hail
charge of the bar pilot­age 09 vessels of from GO to 650 tons crossed in all
128 times. The onlj loss of a vessel in that time was that of the Josephine,
loaded with lumber of the Oregon Milling Company. She was becalmed on the bar,
and a gale coming up in the night she dragged her anchor and was carried on the
sands, where she was dismasted and abandoned. She afterward floated out to sea,
being a total loss. George Gibbs, in Or. Spectator, May 2, 1850. The pilot
commis­sioners, consisting at this time of Gov. Lane and captains Couch and
Crosby, made a strong appeal in behalf of White, but he was left to bear his
losses and go whither he pleased. Johnson's Cat. and Or., 254-5; Carrol’s Star
of the West, 290-5; Stevens, in Pat. R. R. Rept., i. 109, 291-2, 015—10; Poly­nesian,
July 20, 1850. The merchants finally advanced the pay of pilots so as to l e
remunerative, after which time little was heard about the terrors of the
Columbia bar.

there being only
fifteen miles of sand on this part of the coast.37 Little attention
was given to any bay or stream north of the Umpqua, McArthur offering it as his
opinion that they were accessible by small boats alone, except Yaquina, which
might, he conjectured, be entered by vessels of a larger class.

It will be remembered
that the Samuel Roberts entered the Umpqua August G, 1850, and surveyed the
mouth of the river, and the river itself to Scotts- burg. As the Ewing did not
leave the Columbia until the 7th, McArthur’s survey was subsequent to this one.
He crossed the bar in the second cutter and not in the schooner; and pronounced
the channel practicable for steamers, but dangerous for sailing vessels, unless
under favorable circumstances. Slight examination was made of Coos Bay, an
opinion being formed from simply looking at the mouth that it would be found
available for steamers. The Coquille Liver was said to be only large enough for
canoes; and Rogue River also unfit for sailing vessels, being so narrow as to
scarcely afford room to turn in. So much for the Oregon coast. As to the
Klamath, while it had more water on the bar than any river south of the
Columbia, it was so narrow and so rapid as to be unsafe for sailing vessels.S:i

This was a very
unsatisfactory report for the pro­jectors of seaport towns in southern Oregon.
It was almost equally disappointing to the naval and post­office departments of
the general government, and to the mail contractors, who were then still
anxious to avoid running their steamers to the Columbia, and determined if
possible to find a different mail route. The recommendation of the postmaster-general
at the instance of the Oregon delegate, that they should be required to leave
the 'mail at Scottsburg, as I have mentioned, induced them to make a special
effort to

11 Coast.
Survey, 1850. 70; 8 F. Par. Newt, ,Tan. 18, 1861.

38McArthur
died in fSol while on his way to Panama, and the east. Law- non.'a Autobiog.,
MS., !2G.

found a settlement on
the southern coast which would enable them to avoid the bar of tho Umpqua.

The place selected
was on a small bay about eight miles south of Cape Blanco, and a little south
of Point Orford. Orders were issued to Captain Tichenor39 of the
Seagull, which was running to Portland, to put in at this place, previously
visited by him,40 and there leave a small colony of settlers, who
were to examine the country for a road into the interior. Accord­ingly in June
1851 the Seagull stopped at Port Or­ford, as it was named, and left there nine
men, com­manded by J. M. Kirkpatrick, with the necessary stores and arms. A
four-pounder was placed in position on the top of a high rock with one side
sloping to the sea, and which at high tide became an island by the united
waters of the ocean and a small creek which flowed by its base.

While the steamer
remained in port, the Indians, of whom there were many in the neighborhood, ap­peared
friendly. But on the second day after her departure, about forty of them held a
war-dance, dur­ing which their numbers were constantly augmented by arrivals
from the heavily wooded and hilly country back from the shore. When a
considerable force was gathered the chief ordered an advance on the fortified

39William Tichenor was bom in Newark, N.
J., June 13, 1S13, his ances­tor Daniel Tichenor being one of the original
proprietors of that town. He followed the sea/ making his tirst voyage in 1S25.
In 1833 he married and went to Indiana, but could not remain in the interior.
After again making a sea voyage he tried living in Edgar county, Illinois,
where he represented the ninth senatorial district. In 1846 he recruited two
companies for the regiment commanded by Col. E. D. Baker, whom he afterward
helped to elect to the U. S. senate from Oregon. Tichenor came to the Pacific
coast in 1849, and having mined for a short time on the American River,
purchased the schooner J. M. Ryerson, and sailed for the gulf of California,
exploring the coast to San Francisco and northward, discovering the bay spoken
of above. He finally settled at Port Orford, and was three times elected to the
lower house of the Oregon legislature, and once to the senate. lie took up the
study of law and practised for 16 years, and was at one time county judge of
Curry county. Yet during all this time he never quite gave up sea­faring.
Letter of Tichenor, in Historical Correspondence, MS.

rock of tlie
settlers, who motioned them to keep back or receive their fire. But the
savages, ignorant per­haps of the use of cannon, continued to come nearer until
it became evident that a hand-to-hand conflict would soon ensue. When one of
them had seized a musket in the hands of a settler, Kirkpatrick touched a
fire-brand to the cannon, and discharged it in the midst of the advancing
multitude, bringing several to the ground. The men then took aim and shot six
at the first fire. Turning on those nearest with their guns clubbed, they were
able to knock down several, and the battle was won. In fifteen minutes the
Indians had twenty killed and fifteen wounded. Of the white men four were
wounded by tho arrows of the savages which fell in a shower upon them. The
Indians were permitted to carry off their dead, and a lull followed.

But the condition of
the settlers was harassing. They feared to leave their fortified camp to
explore for a road to the interior, and determined to await the return of the
Seagull, which was to bring an­other company from San Francisco. At the end of
five days the Indians reappeared in greater force, and seeing the white men
still in possession of their stronghold and presenting a determined front,
retired a short distance down the coast to hold a war-dance and work up
courage. The settlers, poorly supplied with ammunition, wished to avoid another
conflict in which they might be defeated, and taking advantage of the temporary
absence of the foe essayed to es­cape to the woods, carrying nothing but their
arms.

It was a bold and
desperate movement but it proved successful. Travelling as rapidly as possible
in the almost tropical jungle of the Coast Range, and keep­ing in the forest
for the first five or six miles, they emerged at night on the beach, and by
using great caution eluded their pursuers. On coming to Coquille River, a
village of about two hundred Indians was discovered on the bank opposite, which
they avoided

by going up the
stream for several miles and crossing it on a raft. To be secure against a
similar en­counter, they now kept to the woods for two days, though by doing so
they deprived themselves of the only food, except salmon berries, which they
had been able to find. At one place they fell in with a small band of savTages
whom they frightened away by charg­ing toward them. Again emerging on the beach
they lived on mussels for four days. The only as­sistance received was from the
natives on Cowan River which empties into Coos Bay. These people were friendly,
and fed and helped them on their way. On the eighth day the party reached the
mouth of the Umpqua, where they were kindly cared for by the settlers at that
place.41

When Tichenor arrived
at San Francisco, he pro­ceeded to raise a party of forty men to reenforce his
settlement at Port Orford, to which he had promised to return by the 23d of the
month. The Seagull being detained, he took passage on the Columbia, Captain Le
Roy, and arrived at Port Orford as agreed, on the 23d, being surprised at not
seeing any of his men on shore. He immediately landed, how­ever, with Le Roy
and eight others, and saw provis­ions and tools scattered over the ground, and
on every side the signs of a hard struggle. On the ground was a diary kept by
one of the party, in which the begin­ning of the first day’s battle was
described, leaving off abruptly where the first Indian seized a comrade’s gun.
Hence it was thought that all had been killed, and the account first published
of the affair set it down as a massacre; a report which about one week later
was corrected by a letter from Kirkpatrick, who, after giving a history of his
adventures, concluded

.with a favorable
description of the country and the announcement that he had discovered a tine
bay at the mouth of the Cowan River.*2 This important discovery was
little heeded by the founders of Port Orford, who were bent upon establishing
their settle­ment on a more southern point of the coast.

Tichenor left his
California party at Port Orford well armed and fortified and proceeded to
Portland, where he advertised to land passengers within thirty- five miles of the
Rogue River mines, having brought up about two dozen miners from San Francisco
and landed them at Port Orford to make their way from thence to the interior,
at their own hazard. On reT; turning down the coast the Columbia
again touched at Port Orford and left a party of Oregon men, so that by August
there were about seventy persons at the new settlement. They were ail well
armed and kept guard with military regularity. To some was assigned the duty of
hunting, elk, deer, and other game being plentiful on the coast mountains, and
birds of numerous kinds inhabiting the woods and seashore. A Whitehall boat
w-as left for fishing and shooting purposes. These hunting tours were also
exploring expeditions, resulting in a thorough exami­nation of the coast from
the Coquille River on the north to a little below the California line on the
south, in which distance no better port was discovered.4"

The 24th of August a
party of twenty-three44 under T’Vault set out to explore the
interior, T’Vault’s .experience as a pioneer was supposed to fit him for the
position of guide and Indian-fighter, a most re­sponsible office 111 that
region of hostile savages,

4 Xow
called Coos, an Indian name.

13 Says
Williann in his S. W. Oregon, IIS., 9: ‘It was upon one of these expeditions,
returning from a point where Crescent City now stands, that with a fair wind,
myself at the helm, we sailed into the beautiful Chetcoe River which we ever
pronounced the loveliest little spot upon that line of coast.’

u I give
here the number as given by Williams, one of the coiupany, though it is stated
to bo onty 18 by T’Vault, the leader, in Alla California, Oct. 14, 1851.

particularly as the
expedition was made up of im­migrants of the previous year, -with little or no
knowledge of the country, or of mountain life. Only two of them, Williams and
Lount, both young men from Michigan, were good hunters; and 011 them would
depend the food supply after the ten days’ ra­tions with which each man was
furnished should be exhausted.

Nothing daunted,
however, they set out on horses, and proceeded southward along the coast as far
as the mouth of Rogue River. The natives along the route were numerous, but
shy, and on being approached tied into the woods. At Rogue River, however, they
assumed a different air, and raised their bows threat­eningly, but on seeing
g«ns levelled at them desisted. During the march they hovered about the rear of
the party, who on camping at night selected an open place, and after feeding
their horses burned the grass for two hundred yards around that the savages
might not have it to hide in, keeping at the same time a double guard.
Proceeding thus cautiously they avoided collision with these savages.

When they had reached
a point about fifty miles from the ocean, on the north bank of Rogue River,
having lost their way and provisions becoming low, some determined to turn
back. T’Vault, unwilling to abandon the adventure, offered increased pay to
such as would continue it. Accordingly nine went on with him toward the valley,
though but one of them could be depended upon to bring in game.45
The separation took place on the 1st of September, the advancing party
proceeding up Rogue River, by which course they were assured they could not
fail soon to reach the travelled road.

head-waters of a
stream flowing, it was believed, into the ocean near Cape Blanco. They were
therefore, though designing to go south-eastward^, actually some distance north
as well as east from Port Orford, the nature of the country and the direction
of the ridges forcing them out of their intended course. Finding an open
country on this stream, they followed it down some distance, and chancing to
meet an Indian boy engaged him as a guide, who brought them to the southern
branch of a river, down which they travelled, finding the bottoms covered with
a thick growth of trees peculiar to low, moist lands. It was now deter­mined to
abandon their horses, as they could advance with difficulty, and had no longer
anything to carry which could not be dispensed with. They therefore procured
the services of some Indians with canoes to take them to the mouth of the
river, which they found to have a beautiful valley of rich land, and to be,
after passing the junction of' the two forks, about eighty yards wide, with the
tide ebbing and flowing from two to three feet.46 On the 14th, about
ten o’clock in the morning, having descended to within a few miles of the
ocean, a member of the party, Mr Hedden, one of those driven out of Port Orford
in .Tuvie, and who escaped up the coast, recognized the stream as the Coquille
River, which the previous party had crossed on a raft. Too exhausted to
navigate a boat for themselves, and overcome by hunger, they engaged some
natives47 to take them down the river, instead of which they were
carried to a large rancheria situated about two miles from the ocean.

Savages thronged the
shore armed with bows and arrows, long knives,43 and war-clubs, and
were upon them the moment they stepped ashore. T’Vault

*On Coquille River,
12 mile? below the north fork, is a tree ■with the
name ‘ Dennis White, 1S34, ’
to which some persons have attached importance. Armstrong’s
(Jr., 05.

17 One of
the Indians who paddled their canoes had witli him ‘ the identi­cal gun that
James II. Eagan had broken over an Indian's head at Port Or­ford in .June-
last. ’ Williams’ S. W. Or., MS., ‘28.

-8 These
knives, two and two and a half feet long, were manufactured by

aftenvard declared
that the first thing he was con­scious of was being in the river, fifteen yards
from shore and swimming. He glanced toward the village, and saw only a horrible
confusion, and heard the yells of savage triumph mingled with the sound of
blows and the shrieks of his unfurtunate comrades. At the same instant he saw
Brush in the water not far from him and an Indian standing in a canoe striking
him on the head with a paddle, while the water around was stained with blood.

At this juncture
occurred an incident such as is used to embellish romances, when a woman or a
child in the midst of savagery displays those feelings of humanity common to
all men. While the two white men were struggling for their lives in the stream
a canoe shot from the opposite bank. In it standing erect was an Indian lad,
who on reaching the spot assisted them into the canoe, handed them the paddle,
then springing into the water swam back to the shore. They succeeded in getting
to land, and stripping’ themselves, crawled up the bank and into the thicket
without once standing upright. Striking southward through the rough and briery
undergrowth they hur­ried on as long as daylight lasted, and at night emerged
upon the beach, reaching Cape Blanco the following morning, where the Indians
received them kindly, and after taking care of them for a day conveyed them to
Port Orford. T’Vaultwas not severely wounded, but Brush had part of his scalp
taken off by one of the long knives. Both were suffering from famine and
bruises, and believed themselves the only survivors.49 But in about
two weeks it was ascertained that others of the party were living, namely:
Williams,150

the Indians out of
some hand iron taken from the wreck of the Hor/staff. They were furnished with
wlmlebon'i handles. Parrish's Or. Anecdotes, MS., 00.

50The narrative of Williams is one of the
most thrilling in the literature of savage warfare. When the attack was made he
had just stepped ashore from the canoe. His first struggle was with two
powerful savages for tho

Davenport, and
Hedden, tlie other live having been murdered, their companies hardly knew how.

With this signal
disaster terminated the first at­tempt to reach the Rogue River Valley from
Port Orford; and thus fiercely did the red inhabitants of this region welcome
their white brethren. The diffi­culties with the various tribes which grew out
of this and similar encounters I shall describe in the history of the wars of
1851-3.

Soon after the
failure of the T’Vault expedition another company was fitted out to explore in
a differ-

possessi~n of his
rifle, which being discharged in the contest, for a moment gave him relief by
frightening his assailants. Amidst the yells of Indians and the cries and
groans of comrades he forccd his way through the infuriated crowd with the
stock of his gun, being completely surrounded, fighting in a circle, and
striking in all directions. Soon only the barrel of his gun remained in his
hands, with which he continued to deal heavy blows as he advanced along a piece
of open ground toward the forest, receiving blows as well, one f-f which felled
him to the ground. Quickly recovering himself, with one desperate plunge the
living wall waa broken, and he darted for the woods. As he ran an arrow hit him
between the left hip and lower ribs, penetrating the abdomen, and bringing him
to a sudden stop. Finding it impossible t> move, he drew out the shaft which
broke off, leaving one joint of its length, with the barb, in his body. So
great was his excitement that after the first sensation no pain was felt. The
main party of Indians being occupied with rifling the bodies of the slain, a
race for life now set in with about a dozen of the most persistent of his
enemies. Though several times struck with arrows he ran down all but two who
placed themselves on each side about ten feet away shooting every instant.
Despairing of escape Williams turned on them, but while he chased one the other
shot at him from behind. As if to leave him no chance for life the suspenders
of his pantaloons gave way, and being impeded by their falling down he was
forced to stop and kick them off. With his eyes and mouth filled with blood from
a wounil on the head, blinded and despairing he yet turned to enter the forest
when he fell headlong. At this the Indians rushed upon him sure of their prey;
one of them who carried a captured gun attempted to fire, but it failed. Says
the narrator: ‘The sick­ening sensations of the last half hour were at once
dispelled when I realized that the gun had refused to fire. I was on my feet in
a moment, rifle barrel in hand. Instead of running I stood firm, and the Indian
with the rifle also met me with it drawn by the breech. The critical moment of
the whole affair had arrived, and I knew it must be the final struggle. The
first two or three blows I failed utterly, and received some severe bruises,
but fortune was on my side, ami a lucky blow given with unusual force fell upon
my an­tagonist killing him almost instantly. I seized the cun, a sharp report
fol­lowed, and I had the satisfaction of seeing my remaining pursuer stagger
and fall dead.’ Expecting to die of his wounds Williams entered the shadow of
the woods to seek a place where he might lie down in peace. Soon afterward he
fell in with Hedden, who had escaped uninjured, and who with some friendly
Indians assisted him to reach the Umpqua, where they arrived after six days of
intense suffering from injuries, famine, and cold, and where they found the
brig Almira, Capt. Gibbs, lying, which took them to Gardiner. All

cot direction for a
road to the interior,01 which was compelled to return without
effecting its object. Port Orford, however, received the encouragement and as­sistance
of government officials, including the coast survey officers and military men,52
and throve in con­sequence. Troops were stationed there,53 and
before the close of the year the work of surveying a military road was begun by
Lieutenant Williamson, of the topographical engineers, with an escort of
dragoons from Casey’s command at Port Orford. Several fami­lies had also joined
the settlement, about half a dozen dwelling houses having been erected for
their accom­modation.51 The troops were quartered in nine log
buildings half a mile from the town.63 A permanent route to the
mines was not adopted, however, until late the following year.

Casey’s command
having returned to Benicia about the 1st of December, in January following the
schooner Captain Lincoln, Naghel master, was despatched to Port Orford from San
Francisco with troops and

Williams5
wounds except that in the abdomen healed readily. That dis­charged for a year.
In four years the arrowr-head had worked itself out, but not until
the seventh year did the broken shaft follow it. Davenport, like Hedden, was
unhurt, but wandered starving in the mountains many days before reaching a
settlement. Williams was born in Vermont, and came to the Pacific coast in
1850. He made his home at Ashland, enjoying the respect of his fellow-men,
combining in his manner the peculiarities of the border with those of a
thorough and competent business man. Portland West Shore, June 18, 1878.

61Or. Statesman, Nov. 4, 1851.

52Probably stories like the following had
their effect: ‘Port Orford has recently been ascertained to be one of the very
best harbors on the Pacific coast, accessible to the largest class of vessels,
and situated at a convenient intermediate point between the Umpqua and Rogue
Rivers. ’ Ttejjt. of Gen. Hitchcock, in S2d Gong., 1st Sess., II. Ex. Doc. 2,
149; S. F. Alta, July 13th and Sept. 14, 1852.

53Lieutenant Kautz, of the rifles,
with 20 men stationed at Astoria, was ordered to Port Orford in August, at the
instance of Tichenor, where a post was to be established for the protection of
the miners in Rogue River Valley, which was represented to be but 35 miles
distant from this place. After the massacre on the Coquille, Col. Casey, of the
2d infantry, was despatched from vSan Francisco wTith portions of
three dragoon companies, arriving at Port Orford on the 22d of October.*

stores under
Lieutenant Stanton. The weather being foul she missed the harbor and went
ashore on a sand spit two miles north of the entrance to Coos Bay. The
passengers and cargo were safely landed on the beach, where shelter was
obtained under sails stretched on booms and spars. Thus exposed, annoyed by
high winds and drifting sands, and by the thiev­ing propensities of the
natives, Stanton was forced to remain four mouths. An effort was made to
explore a trail to Port Orford by means of which pack-trains could be sent to
their relief. Twelve dragoons were assigned to this service, with orders to
wait at Port Orford for despatches from San Francisco in answer to his own,
which, as the mail steamers avoided that place after hearing of the wreck of
the schooner, did not arrive until settled weather in March. Quarter­master
Miller replied to Stanton by taking passage for Port.Orford 011 the Columbia
under a special ar­rangement to stop at that port. But the steamer’s captain
being unacquainted with the coast, and hav­ing nearly made the mistake of
attempting to enter Rogue River, proceeded to the Columbia, and it was not
until the 12th of April that Miller reached his destination. He brought a train
of twenty mules from Port Orford, the route proving a most harass­ing one, over
slippery mountain spurs, through dense forests obstructed with fallen timber,
across several rivers, besides sand dunes and marshes, four days being consumed
in marching fifty miles.

On reaching Camp
Castaway, Miller proceeded to the Umpqua, where he found and chartered the
schooner Nassau, which was brought around into Coos Bay, being the first vessel
to enter that harbor. Wagons had been shipped by the quartermaster to the
Umpqua by the brig Fawn. The mules were sent to haul them down the beach by
what proved to be a good road, and the stores being loaded into them were
transported across two miles of sand to the west shore of the bay and placed
011 board the Nassau, in

which they were taken
to Port Orford,56 arriving the 20th of May.

The knowledge of the
country obtained in these forced expeditions, added to the exploration of the
Coquille Vail j by road-hunters in the previous autumn, and by the military
expedition of Casey to punish the Coquilles, of which I shall speak in an­other
place, was the means of attracting attention to the advantages of this portion
of Oregon for settle­ment. A chart of Coos Bay entrance was made by Nagliel,
which was sufficiently correct fur sailing pur­poses, and the harbor was
favorably reported upon by Miller.57

On the 28th of
January the schooner Juliet, Cap­tain Collins, was driven ashore near Yaquina
Bay, the crew and passengers being compelled to remain upon the stormy coast
until by aid of an Indian mes­senger horses could be brought from the
Willamette to transport them to that more hospitable region.53 While
Collins was detained, which was until the latter part of March, he occupied a
portion of his time in exploring Yaquina Bay, finding it navigable for ves­sels
drawing from six to eight feet of water: but the

Oo7

entrance was a bad
one. In the bay were found oysters and clams, while the adjacent land was
deemed excel­lent. Thus by accident59 as well as effort the secrets
of the coast country were brought to light, and

66 The
Nassau was wrecked at the entrance to the Umpqua a few months later. Or.
Statesman, Sept. 18, 1852. From 1850 to 1852 five vessels were lost at this
place, the Bostonian, Nassau, Almira, Orchilla, and Caleb Curtes,

5732d Cong., Sess., //. S. Ex. Doc. 1, pt.
ii. 103-9.

58Dr McLoughlin, Hugh Burns, W. C.
Griswold, and W. H. Barnhart responded to the appeal of the shipwrecked, and
furnished the means of their rescue from suffering. Or. Statesman, March 2d and
April 6, 1852.

69Of marine disasters there seem to have
been a great number in 1851-2. The most appalling was of the steam propeller
General Warren, Captain Charles Thompson, which stranded on Clatsop spit, after
passing out of the Columbia, Jan. 28, 1852. The steamer was found to be leaking
badly, and being put about could not make the river again. She broke up almost
imme­diately after striking the sands, and by daylight next morning there was
only enough left of the wreck to afford standing room for her passengers and
crew. A boat, the only one remaining, was despatched in charge of the bar pilot
to

although the
immigration of 1851 was not more than a third as much as that of the previous
year, there were people enough running to and fro, looking for new enterprises,
to impart an interest to each fresh revelation of the resources of the
territory.

Astoria for
assistance. On its return nothing could be found but some float­ing fragments
of the vessel. Not a life was saved of the 52 persons on board. Or. Statesman,
Feb. 10th and 24, 1852j Id., March 9, 1852; Swan'* Ar. W. Coast,
259j Portland Oregonian, Feb. 7, 1852; S. F. Alta, Feb. 16, 1852.

Politics—Election
op a Delegate—Extinguishment of Inman Titles— Indian Superintendents and Agents
Appointed—Kindness or the Great
Father at Washington—Appropriations of Congress— Frauds Arising from the
System—Easy Expenditure of Govern­ment Money—Unpopularity of Human
Sympathy—Efficiency of Superintendent Dart—Thirteen Treaties Effected—Lane
among the Rogue River Indians and in the Mines—Divers Outrages and
Retaliations—Military Affairs—Rogue River War—The Stronghold—Battle of Table
Rock—Death of Stuart—Kearney's Prisoners.

Lane was not a
skilful politician and finished orator like Thurston, though he had much
natural ability,1 and had the latter been alive, notwithstanding his
many misdeeds, Lane could not so easily have secured the election as delegate
to congress. It was a per­sonal rather than a party matter,2 though
a party spirit developed rapidly after Lane’s nomination, chiefly be­cause a
majority of the people were democrats,3 and

1‘ Gen. Lane is a man of a high order of
original genius. He ia not self­made, but God-made. He was educated nowhere.
Nobody but a man of superior natural capacity, without education, could have
maintained himself among men from early youth as he did.’ Grover’s Pub. Life,
MS., 81. We may hereby infer the idea intended to be conveyed, however
ill-fitting the words.

2Says W. W. Buck: ‘Before 1851 there were
no nominations made. In 1851 they organized into political parties as whigs and
democrats. Before that men of prominence would think of some one, and go to him
and find out if he would serve. The knowledge of the movement would spread, and
the foremost candidate get elected, while others ran scattering.’ Enterprises,
MS., 13.

3Jesse Applegate, who had been mentioned
as suitable for the place, wrote to the Spectator March 14th: ‘ The people of
the southern frontier, of which I am one, owe to Gov. Lane a debt of gratitude
too strong for party prejudices to cancel, and too great for time to erase.
..Rifle in hand he gal-

•(205)

their favorites,
Thurston and Lane, wore democrats, while the administration was whig and not in
sym­pathy with them.

The movement for Lane
began in February, the earliest intimation of it appearing in the Spectator of
March Gtli, after which he was nominated in a public meeting at Lafayette. Lane
himself did uot appear on the ground uniil the last of April, and the news of
Thurston’s death arriving within a few days, Lane’s name was immediately put
forward by every journal in the territory. But he was not, for all that, with­out
an opponent. The mission party nominated W. JL Willson, who from a whajing-ship
cooper and lay Methodist had come to be called doctor and been given places of
trust. His supporters were the de­fenders of that part of Thurston’s policy
which was generally condemned. There was nothing of conse­quence at issue
however, and as Lane was facile of tongue4 and clap-trap, he was
elected by a majority of 1,832 with 2,917 votes cast.5 As soon as
the returns were all in, Lane set out again for the mines, where he was just in
time to be of service to the settlers of Hogue River Valley.

Immediately upon the
passage of an act by congress, extinguishing Indian titles west of the Cascade
Moun­tains in 1850, the president appointed superintendent of Indian affairs,
Anson Dart of Wisconsin, who ar­rived early in October, accompanied by P. C.
Dart, his secretary. Three Indian agents were appointed

lantly braved the
floods and storms of winter to save our property, •wives, and daughters from
the rapine of a lawless soldiery,’ which statement, howsoever it pictures
public sentiment, smacks somewhat of the usual electioneering exaggeration.

■' He had a
particularly happy faculty for what we would call domestic electioneering. He
did not mi.ke speeches, but would go around and talk with families. They used
to tell this story about him, and I think it is true, that what he got at one
place, in the way of seeds or choice articles, he distributed at tho next
place. He brought these, with candies, and always kissed the children.’
Strong’s Hint. Or., MS., 11.

at the same time,
namely: A. G. Henry of Illinois,6 II. H. Spalding, and Elias
Wampole. Dart’s instruc­tions from the commissioner, under date of July 20,
1850, were in general, to govern himself by the in­structions furnished to Lane
as ex-officio superintend­ent,7 to be modified according to
circumstances. The number of agents and subagents appointed had been in
accordance with the recommendation of Lane, and to the information contained in
Lane’s report he was requested to give particular attention, as well as to the
suppression of the liquor traffic, and the enforce­ment of the penalties
provided in the intercourse act of 1834, and also as amended in 1847, making
one or two years’ imprisonment a punishment for furnishing Indians with
intoxicating drink.8 A feature of the instructions, showing
Thurston’s hand in this matter, was the order not to purchase goods from the
Hud­son’s Bay Company for distribution among the Indians, but that they be
purchased of American merchants, and the Indians taught that it was from the
American government they received such benefits. It was also forbidden in the
instructions that the company should have trading posts within the limits of
United States territory,8 the superintendent being required to pro­ceed
with them in accordance with the terms of the act regulating intercourse with
the Indians.

“Thurston, who was
nra^h opposed to appointing men from the east, wrote to Oregon: ‘Dr Henry of
Illinois was appointed Indian agent, held on to it a while, drew 5750 under the
pretence of going to Oregon, and then resigned, leaving the government minus
that sum Upou his resigning Mr Simeon Francis was nominated, first giving
assurance that he would leave for Oregon, but instead of doing so he is* at
home in Illinois.’ Or. Spectator, April 10, 1851.

^ S 1st
Con;)., 1st 6'ess., S. Doc. 52, 1-7, 154-80.

'It should be here
mentioned, in justice to Thurston, that when the Indian bill was under
consideration by the congressional committees, it was brought to his notice by
the commissioner, that while Lane had given much information on the number and
condition of the Indians, tiie number of agents necessary, the ami innt of
money necessary for agency buildings, agents, expenses, and presents to the
Indians, he had neglected to state what tribes should be bought out, the extent
of their territory, what would be a fair price for the lands, to what place
they should be removed, and whether such lands were vacant. Thurston furnished
this information according to his conception of right, and had the bill framed
for the extinguishment of titles in that part of Oregon, which was rapidly
tilling up with white settlers. See Letter of Orlando Brown, Commissioner, in
Or. Spectator, Oct. 31, 1S50.

s 31st
Cong., 2d Sens., II. Ex. Doc. 1, 140.

As to the attitude of
government toward the Indians there was the usua’ political twaddle. An
important object to be aimed at, the commissioner said, was the reconciling of
differences between tribes. Civilized people may tight, but not savages. The
Indians, should be urged to engage in agricultural pursuits, to raise grain,
vegetables, and stock of all kinds; and to encourage them, small premiums might
be offered for the greatest quantity of produce, or number of cattle and other
farm animals. With regard to missionaries among the Indians, they were to be
encouraged without reference to denomination, and left free to use the best
means of christianizing. The sum of twenty thousand dollars was advanced to the
superintendent, of which five thousand was to be applied to the erection of
houses for the accommoda­tion of himself and agents, four thousand for his own
residence, and the remainder for temporary buildings to be used by the agents
before becoming permanently established. The remainder was for presents and
provisions.

There were further
appointed for Oregon three commissioners to make treaties with the Indians,
John P. Gaines, governor, Alonzo A. Skinner, and Beverly S. Allen; the last
received his commission the 12th of August and arrived in Oregon in the early
part of February 1851. The instructions were gen­eral, the department being
ignorant of the territory, except that it extended from the 42d to the 49th
parallel, and was included between the Cascade Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
The object of the government it was said was to extinguish the Indian titles,
and remove the complaint of the settlers that they could acquire no perfect
titles to their claims before the Indians had been quieted. They were ad­vised
therefore to treat first with the Indians in the Willamette Valley, and with
each tribe separately.10

10 ‘ The
maximum price given for Indian lands has been ten cents per acre, but this lias
been fur small quantities of great value from their contiguity to

They were to fix upon
an amount of money to be paid, and agree upon an annuity not to exceed five per
cent of the whole amount. It was also advised that money be not employed, but
that articles of use should be substituted; and the natives be urged to accept
such things as would assist them in becoming farmers and mechanics, and to
secure medical aid and education. If any money remained after so pro­viding it
might be expended for goods to be delivered annually in the Indian country. The
sum of twenty thousand dollars was to be applied to these objects; fifteen
thousand to be placed at the disposal of Gov­ernor Gaines, at the sub-treasury,
San Francisco, and to be accounted for by vouchers; and five thousand to be
invested in goods and sent round Cape Horn for distribution among the Indians.
The commis­sioners were allowed mileage for themselves and secretary at the
rate of ten cents a mile, together with salaries of eight dollars a day during
service for each of the commissioners, and five dollars for the secretary. They
were also to have as many interpret­ers and assistants as they might deem
necessary, at a proper compensation, and their travelling expenses paid.11

Such was the
flattering prospect under which the Indian agency business opened in Oregon.
Truly, a government must have faith in its servants to place such temptations
in their way. Frauds innumerable were the result; from five hundred to five
thousand dollars would be paid to the politicians to secure an agency, the
returns from which investment, with hundreds per cent profit, must be made by
systematic peculations and pilferings, so that not one quarter of the moneys
appropriated on behalf of the Indians

the States; and it is
merely mentioned to show that some important consider­ation has always been
involved when so large a price has been given. It is not for a moment to be
supposed that any such consideration can be involved in any purchases to be
made by you, and it is supposed a very small portion of that price will be
required.’ A. S. Loughery, Acting Commissioner, in 31st Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex.
Doc. 1, 147.

would be expended for
their benefit. Perhaps the public conscience was soothed by this show of
justice, as pretentious as it was hollow, and the emptiness of which was patent
to every one; but it would have been in as good taste, and far more manly and
honest, to have shot down the aboriginals and seized their lands without these
hypocrisies and stealings, as was frequently done.

()ften the people
were worse than the government or its agents, so that there was little
inducement for the latter to be honest. In the present instance the
commissioners were far more just and humane than the settlers themselves. It is
true they entered upon their duties in Aprd 1851 with a pomp and circum­stance
in no wise in keeping with the simple habits of the Oregon settlers; with
interpreters, clerks, com­missaries, and a retinue of servants they established
themselves atCliampoeg, to which place agents brought the so-called chiefs of
the wretched tribes of the Yv’il- lamette; but they displayed a heart and a
humanity in their efforts which did them honor. Of the San- tiam band of the
Calapooyas they purchased a portion of the valley eighty miles in length by
twenty in breadth; of the Tualatin branch of the same nation a tract of country
fifty miles by thirty hi extent, these lands being among the best in the
valley, and already settled upon by white men. The number of Indians of both
sexes and all ages making a claim to this extent of territory was in the former
instance one hundred and fifty-five and in the latter sixty- five.

The commissioners
were unable to induce the Cala­pooyas to remove east of the Cascade mountains,
as had been the intention of the government, their refusal resting upon
reluctance to leave the graves of their ancestors, and ignorance of the means
of procuring a livelihood in any country but their own. To these
representations Gaines and his associates lent a sym­pathizing ear, and allowed
the Indians to select reser­

vations within the
valley of tracts of land of a few miles in extent situated upon the lower
slopes of the Cascade and Coast ranges, where game, roots, and berries could be
procured with ease.12

As to the
instructions of the commissioner at Wash­ington, it was not possible to carry
them out. Schools the Indians refused to have; and from their experi­ence of
them and their effects on the young I am quite sure the savages were right.
Only a few of the Tualatin band would consent to receive farming utensils, not
wishing to have habits of labor forced upon them with their annuities. They
were anxious also to be paid in cash, consenting reluctantly to ac­cept a
portion of their-annuities in clothing and pro­visions.

In May four other
treaties were concluded with the Luekiamute, Calapooyas, and Molallas, the
territory thus secured to civilization comprising about half the Willamette
Valley.13 The upper and lower Molallas received forty-two thousand
dollars, payable in twenty annual instalments, about one third to be in cash
and the remainder in goods, with a present on the ratifica­tion of the treaties
of a few rifles and horses for the head men. Like the Calapooyas they steadily
refused to devote any portion of their annuities to educational purposes, the
general sentiment of these western Ind­ians being that they had but a little
time to live, and it was useless to trouble themselves about education, a
sentiment not wholly Indian, since it kept Europe in darkness for a thousand
years.14

12No mention is made of the price paid for
these lands, nor have I seen these treaties in print.

13This is the report of the commissioners,
though the description of tlie landa purchased is different in the Spectator of
.May 15, 1851, where it is said that the purchase included all the east side of
the valley to the head-watera of the Willamette.

1 * The
native eloquence, touched and made pathetic by the despondency of the natives,
being quoted in public by the commissioners, subjected them to the ridicule of
the anti-administration journal, as for instance: ‘In this city Judge Skinner
spent days, and for aught we know, weeks, in interpreting Slacum’s jargon
speeches, while Gaines, swelling with consequence, pronounced them more
eloquent than the orations of Demosthenes or Cicero, and peddled

In order to give tlie
Indians the reservations they desired it was necessary to include some tracts
claimed by settlers, which would either have to be vacated, the government
paying for their improvements, or the settlers compelled to live among the
Indians, an alter­native not likely to commend itself to either the set­tlers
or the government.

A careful summing-up
of the report of the commis­sioners showed that they had simply agreed to pay
annuities to the Indians for twenty years, to make them presents, and to build
them houses, while the Indians still occupied lands of their own choosing in
portions of the valley already being settled by white people, and that they
refused to accept teachers, either religious or secular, or to cultivate the
ground. Bv these terms all the hopeful themes of the commissioner at Washington
fell to the ground. And yet the gov­ernment was begged to ratify the treaties,
because failure to do so would add to the distrust already felt by the Indians
from their frequent disappointments, and make any further negotiations
difficult.15

About the time the
last of the six treaties was concluded information was received that congress,
by act of the 27tli of February, had abolished all special Indian commissions,
and transferred to the superin­tendent the power to make treaties. All but
three hundred dollars of the twenty thousand appropriated under the advice of
Thurston for this branch of the service had been expended by Gaines in five
weeks of absurd magnificence at Champoeg, the paltry remain­der being handed
over to Superintendent Dart, who received no pay for the extra service with
which to defray the expense of making further treaties. Thus ended the first
essay of congress to settle the question of title to Indian lands.

them about the town
This ridiculous farce made the actors the laughing* stock of the boyst, and
even of the Indiana.’ Ur. Statesman, Nov. 6, 1S52.

Dart did not find
liis office a sinecure. The area of the country over which his superintendency
extended was so great that, even with the aid of more agents, I’ttle could be
accomplished in a season, six months of the year only admitting of travel in
the unsettled por­tions of the territory. To add to his embarrassment, the
three agents appointed had left him almost alone to perform the duty which
should have been divided among several assistants,16 the pay offered
to agents being so small as to be despised by men of character and ability who
had their living to earn.

About the 1st of June
1851 Dart set out to visit the Indians east of the Cascade Mountains, who since
the close of the Cayuse war had maintained a friendly attitude, but who hearing
that it was the design to send the western Indians among them were becoming
uneasy. Their opposition to having the sickly and degraded Willamette natives
in their midst was equal to that of the white people. Neither wore they will­ing
to come to any arrangement by which they would be compelled to quit the couutry
which each tribe for itself called its own. Dart promised them just treat­ment,
and that they should receive pay for their lands. Having selected a site for an
agency building on the Umatilla he proceeded to Waiilatpu and Lapwai, as
instructed, to determine the losses sustained by the Presbyterians, according
to the instructions of gov­ernment.17

16Dart complained in hia report that
Spalding, who had been assigned to the Umpqua country, had visited it but twice
during the year, and asked his removal and the substitution of E. A. Starling.
The latter was first stationed at the mouth of the Columbia, and soon after
sent to Puget Sound. Wam- pole arrived in Oregon in July 1851, was sent to
Umatilla, and removed in less than three months for violating orders and
trading with the Indians. Allen, appointed after Henry and Francis, also
finally declined, when Skinner ac­cepted the place too late in the year to accomplish
anything. A. Van Dusen, of Astoria, had been appointed subagent, but declined;
then Shortess had accepted the position. Walker had been appointed to go among
the Spokanes, but it was doubtful if $750 a year would be accepted. Finally J.
L. Parrish, also a subagent, was the only man who had proven efficient and
ready to perform the services required of him. 32d Cong., 1st Sess., H. Ex.
Doc. 2, pt. iii. 473; IT. S. Ev. If. B. Co. Claims, 27; Amer, Almanac, 1851,
113; Id., 1852, 116; Dunniway’s Capt. Gray's Company, 162.

17The claims against the government for the
destruction of the missions was large in the estimation of Dart, who does not
state the amount.

The Cayuses expressed
satisfaction that the United States cherished no hatred toward them for their
past misdeeds, and received assurances of fair treatment in the future, sealed
with a feast upon a fat ox. At Lapwai the same promises were given and
ceremonies observed. The only thing worthy of remark that I find in the report
of Dart’s visit to eastern Oregon is the fact mentioned that the Cayuses had
dwindled from their former greatness to be the most insignifi­cant tribe in the
upper country, there being left but one hundred and twenty-six, of whom
thirty-eight only were men; and the great expense attending his visit,1*
the results of which were not what the govern­ment expected, if indeed any body
knew what was expected. The government was hardly prepared to purchase the
whole Oregon territory, even at the minimum price of three cents an acre, and
it was dangerous policy holding out the promise of some­thing not likely to be
performed.

As to the
Presbyterian mission claims, if the board had been paid what it cost to have
its property ap­praised, it would have been all it was entitled to, and particularly
since each station could hold a section of land under the organic act. And as
to the claims of pri­vate individuals for property destroyed by the Cayuses,
these Indians not being in receipt of annuities out of which the claims could
be taken, there was no way in which they could be collected. Neither was the
agency erected of any benefit to the Indians, because the agent, Wampole, soon
violated the law, was re­moved, and the agency closed.

18There were 11 persons in Part’s
party—himself and secretary, 2 inter­preters, drawing together $11 a day; 2
carpenters, $12; 3 packers, $15; 2 cooks, $6. The secretary received $5 a day,
making the wages of the party $50 daily at the start, in addition to the
superintendent’s salary. Transpor­tation to The Dalles cost $400. At The Dalles
another man with 20 horses was hired at $15 a day, and 2 wagons with oxen at
$12; the passage from Portland to Umatilla costing $1,500 besides subsistence.
And this was only the beginning of expenses. The lumber for the agency building
at Umatilla had to be carried forty miles at an enormous cost; the beef which
feasted the Cayuses cost $80, and other things in proportion. 32d Oong., 1st
Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 2, pt. iii.

Concerning that part
of his instructions to encour­age missionaries as teachers among the Indians,
Dart had little to say; for which reason, or in revenge for his dismissal,
Spalding represented that no American teachers, but only Catholics and
foreigners were given permission to enter the Indian country.19 But
as his name was appended to all the treaties made while he was agent, with one
exception, he must have been as guilty as any of excluding American teachers.
The truth was that Dart promised the Indians of eastern Oregon that they should
not be disturbed in their religious practices, but have such teachers as they
pre­ferred.20 This to the sectarian Protestant mind was simply
atrocious, though it seemed only politic and just to the unbiassed
understanding of the superin­tendent.

With regard to that
part of liis instructions relating to suppressing the establishments of the
Hudson’s Bay Company in Oregon, he informed the commis­sioner that he found the
company to have rights which prompted him to call the attention of the
government to the subject before he attempted to interfere with them, and
suggested the propriety of purchasing those rights instead of proceeding
against British traders as criminals, the only accusation that could be brought
against them being that they sold better goods to the Indians for less money
than American traders.

And concerning the
intercourse act prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors to the natives,
Dart re­marked that although a good deal of liquor was con­

19This charge being deemed inimical to the
administration, the President denied it in a letter to the Philadelphia Daily
Sun, April 1852. The matter is referred to in the Or. Statesman, June 15th and
July 3, 1852. See also Horne Missionary, vol. lxxxiv. 276.

20In 1852 a Catholic priest, E. C.
Chirouse, settled on a piece of land at Walla Walla, making a claim under the
act of congress establishing the terri­torial government of Washington. He
failed to make his tinal pro' >t according to law and the notification of
liirt intentions was not filed till 1SG0, when Archbishop Tilanchet made a
notification; but it appeared that whatever title there was, was in Chirouse.
He relinquished it to the U. S. in IS02, but it was then too late for the
Catholic church to set up a claim, and the archbishop’s notification was not
allowed. Portland Oregonian, March 10, 1872.

sumed in Oregon, in
some localities the Indians used less in proportion than any others in the
United States, and referred to the difficulty of obtaining evidence against
liquor sellers on account of the law of Oregon excluding colored witnesses, lie
also gave it as his opinion that except the Shoshones and llogue River Indians
the aborigines of Oregon were more peaceable than any of the uncivilized
tribes, but that to keep in check these savages troops were indispen­sable, recommending
that a company be stationed in the Shoshone country to protect the next year’s
im­migration.121 Altogether Dart seems to have been a fair and
reasonable man, who discharged his duty under unfavorable circumstances with
promptness and good sense.

21Eighteen thousand dollars ■n orth of
property wa« stolon by the Shoshones in 1851; many
w hite men were killed, and more wounded. Ilutchiaon Clark, uf Illinois, was
driving, in advance of his company, with his mother, sister, and a j oung
brother in the family carnage near Raft River 40 miles west of Fort Hall, when
tho party was attacked, his mother and brother killed, and Miss Grace Clark,
after being outraged and shot through the body and wrist, was thrown over a
precipice to die. She alighted on ii bank of sand which broke the force of the
fall. Tho savages then rolled stones over after her, some of which struck and
wounded her, notwithstanding all of which she survived and readied Oregon
alive. She was married afterward to a Hr Vandervert, and settled on the coast
branch uf the Willamette. She died Feb. 20, 1875. When the train came up and
discovered the bloody deed and that the Indians had driven off over twenty
valuable horses, a company was formed, led by Charles Clark, to follow and
chastise them. These were driven back, however, with a loss of one killed and
one wounded. A brother of this Clark family named Thomas had emigrated in 1848,
and was awaiting the arrival of his friends when the outrages occurred. Or.
Statesman, Sept. 23, 1851. The same band killed Hr Miller, from Virginia, and
seriously wounded his daughter. They killed Jackson, a brother-iu-law of
Miller, at the same time, and attacked a train of twenty wagons, led by
Ilarpool, being repulsed with some loss. Other parties were attacked at
different points, and maay persons wounded. Or. Spectator, Sept. 2, 1851;
Barnes' Or. and Cal., MS,, 26. Raymond, superintendent at Fort Hall, said that
HI emigrants had been shot by the Shoshones and their allies the Bannacks. Or.
Statesman, Dec. 9, 1851; S. F. Alta, Sept. 28, 1851. The residents of the
country were at a loss to account for these outrages, so hold on the part of
the savages, and so injurious to the white people. It was said that the decline
of the fur-trade- compelled the Indians to robbery, and that they willingly
availed themselves of an opportunity not only to make good their losses, but to
be avenged for any wrongs, real or imaginary, which they had ever suffered at
the hands of white men. A more obvious reason might be found in the withdrawal
of the influence wielded over them by the Hudson’s Bay Company, who being now
under United States and Oregon law was forbidden to furnish ammunition, ami was
no longer esteemed among the Indians who had nothing to gain by obedience. Some
of the emigrants professed to believe the Indian hostili­ties directly due to
Mormon influence. David Newsome of the immigration

On returning from
eastern Oregon, Dart visited the mouth of the Columbia in company with two of
his agents, and made treaties with the Indians on both sides of the river, the
tract purchased extending from the Chehalis River on the north to the Yaqui- na
Bay on the south; and from the ocean on the west, to above the mouth of the
Cowlitz. River. For this territory the sum of ninety-one thousand three hundred
dollars was promised, to be paid in ten yearly instalments, in clothing,
provisions, and other neces­sary articles. Reservations were made on Clatsop
Point, and Woody and Cathlamet islands; and one was made at Shoalwater Bay,
conditioned upon the majority of the Indians removing to that place within one
year, in which case they would be provided with a manual labor school, a lumber
and flouring mill, and a farmer and blacksmith to instruct them in agricul­ture
and the smith’s art.

Other treaties were
made daring the summer and autumn. The Clackamas tribe, numbering eighty-eight-
persons, nineteen of whom were men, was promised an annuity of two thousand
five hundred dollars for a period of ten years, five hundred in money, and the
remainder in food and clothing.22 The natives of the south-western
coast also agreed to cede a territory extending from the Coquille River to the
southern boundary of Oregon, and from the Pacific Ocean

of 1S51 says: ‘Every
murder, theft, and raid upon us from Fort Laramie to Grande Hondo we could
trace to Mormon influences and plans. I recorded very many instances of thefts,
robberies, and murders on the journey in my journal.’ Portland West Shore, Feb.
1870. I find no ground whatever for tiiis assertion. But whatever the cause,
they were an alarming feature of the time, arid called for government
interference. Hence a petition to congress in the memorial of the legislature
for troops to be stationed at the several posts selected in 1849 or at other
points upon the road; and of a demand ol Lane’s, that the rifle regiment should
be i etumed to Oregon to keep the Indians in cheek. 32d Cong., 1st Sess., Cong.
Globe, lSol-2, i. 507. When Superintend­ent Dart was in the Nez Perc6 country
that tribe complained of the depreda­tions of the Shoshones, and wished to go
to war. Dart, however, exacted a promise to wait a year, and if then the United
States had not redressed their w rongs, they should be left at liberty to go
against their enemies. If the Nss I’ercSs had been allowed to punish the
Shoshones it would have saved the lives of many innocent persons and a large
amount of government money.

32Or. Statesman, Aug. 19, 1851; Or.
Spectator, Dee. 2, 1831.

to a line drawn fifty
miles east, eighty miles in length, covering an area of two and a lialf million
acres, most of which was mountainous and heavily timbered, with a few small
valleys on the coast and in the interior,23 for the sum of
twenty-eight thou­sand five hundred dollars, payable in ten annual in­stalments,
no part of which was to be paid in money. Thirteen treaties in all were
concluded with different tribes, by the superintendent, for a quantity of laud
amounting to six million acres, at an average cost of not over three cents an
acre.24

In November Dart left
Oregon for "Washington, taking with him the several treaties for
ratification, and to pi'ovide for carrying them out.

The demand for the
office of an Indian agent in western Oregon began in 1849, or as soon as the
Ind­ians learned that white men might be expected to travel through their
country with horses, provisions, and property of various kinds, which they
might be de­sirous to have. The trade in horses was good in the mines of
California, and Cayuse stock was purchased and driven there by Oregon traders,
who made a large profit.25 Many miners also returned from California
overland, and in doing so had frequent encounters with Indians, generally at
the crossing of Rogue Iliver.26 The ferrying at this place was
performed in canoes, made for the occasion, and which, when used and left, were
stolen by the Indians to compel the next party to make another, the delay
affording opportunity for

2332d Cong., 1st, Sess., II, Ex. Doc. 2,
pt. iii. 483.

24After liis return from his expedition
east of the Cascade Range, Dart seemed to have practised an economy which was
probably greatly suggested by the strictures of the democratic press rpon the
proceedings of the previous oommission. ‘All the expense,’he says, referring to
the Coquille country, ‘ of making these treaties, adding the salaries of the
officers of government, while thus engaged, -would mako the cost of the land
less than one cent and a half per acre. 32d Cong., 1st Sess., II. Ex. Doc. 2,
pt. iii. And in the California Courier he says the total cost of negotiating
the whole thirteen treaties was, including travelling expenses, about $3,0C0.
Or. Statesman, Report, Dec. 9, 1831.

‘'‘Honolulu
Friend, Aug. 24, 1850.

S6Hancock’s
Thirteen are, MS.; Johnson’s Ual. and Or., 121-2, 133.

falling on them
should they prove unwary. After several companies had been attacked the miners
turned upon the Indians and became the assailants. And to stop the stealing of
canoes, left for the convenience of those in the rear, some miners concealed
themselves and lay in wait for the thieves, who when they en­tered the canoe
were shot. However beneficial this may have been for the protection of the
ferry it did not mend matters in a general way. If the Indians had at first
been instigated simply by a desire for plunder,27 they had now
gained from the retaliation of the Americans another motive—revenge.

In the spring of 1850
a party of miners, who had collected a considerable sum in gold-dust in the
placers of California and were returning home, reached the Rogue River,
crossing one day, toward sunset, and encamped about Rock Point. They did not
keep a very careful watch, and a sudden attack caused them to run to cover,
while the Indians plundered the camp of everything of value, including the bags
of gold- dust. But one man, who had his treasure on his per­son, escaped being
robbed.

It was to settle with
these rogues for this and like transactions that Lane set out in May or June
1850 to visit southern Oregon, as before mentioned. The party consisted of
fifteen white men, and the same number of Klickitats, under their chief
Quatley, the determined enemy of the Rogue River people. Quat­ley was told what
was expected of him, which was not to fight unless it become necesary, but to
assist in making a treaty. They overtook on the way some cattle-drivers going
to California, who travelled with

27 Barnes’
Or. and Cal., MS., 13. Says Lane, speaking of the chief at Rogue River, over
whom he obtained a strong influence: ‘Joe told me that the first time he shed
white blood, he, with another Indian, discovered lato in the afternoon two
whites on horseback passing through their country. At first they thought these
might be men intending some mischief to their people, but having watched them
to their camp and seen them build their fire for the night, they conceived the
idea of murdering them for the sake of the horses and luggage. This they did,
taking their scalps. After that they always killed any whites they could for
the sake of plunder.’ Autobiography, MS.,

them, glad of an
escort. All were well mounted, with plenty of provisions on pack horses, and
well armed. They proceeded leisurely, and stopped to hunt and dry venison in
the valley of Grave Creek. About the middle of June they arrived at llogue
River, and encamped near the Indian villages, Lane sending word to the
principal chief that he had come to talk with him and his people, and to make a
treaty of peace and friendship. To this message the chief re­turned answer that
he would come in two days with all his people, unarmed, as Lane stipulated.

Accordingly, the two
principal chiefs and about seventy-five warriors came and crossed to the south
side, where Lane’s company were encamped. A circle was formed, Lane and the
chiefs standing inside the ring. But before the conference began a second band,
as large as the first, and fully armed with bows and arrows, began descending a
neighboring hill upon the camp. Lane told Quatley to come inside the ring, and
stand, with two or three of his Indians, beside the head Rogue River chief. The
new-comers were ordered to lay down their arms and be seated, and the business
of the council proceeded, Lane keep­ing a sharp lookout, and exchanging
significant glances with Quatley and his party. The occasion of the visit was
then fully explained to the people of Rogue River; they were reminded of their
uniform conduct toward white men, of their murders and robberies, and were told
that hereafter white people must travel through their country in safety; that
their laws had been extended over all that region, and if obeyed every one
could live in peace; and that if the Indians behaved well compensation would be
made them for their lands that might be settled upon, and an agent sent to see
that they had justice.

Following Lane’s
speech, the Rogue River chief addressed, in loud, deliberate tones, his people,
when presently they all rose and raised the war-cry, and those wTho
had arms displayed them. Lane told Quat-

ley to hold fast the
head chief, •whom he had already seized, and ordering his men not to fire, he
sprang with revolver in hand into the line of the traitors and knocked up their
guns, commanding them to be seated and lay down their arms. As the chief was a
prisoner, and Quatley held a knife at his throat, they were constrained to
obey. The captive chief, who had not counted upon this prompt action, and whose
brothers had previously disposed themselves among their people to be ready for
action, finding his situa­tion critical, told them to do as the white chief Lad
said. After a brief consultation they rose again, being ordered by the chief to
retire and not to return for two days, when they should come in a friendly
manner to another council. The Indians then took their departure, sullen and
humiliated, leaving their chief a prisoner in the hands of the white men, by
whom he was secured in such a manner that he could not escape.

Lane used the two
days to impress upon the mind of the savage that he had better accept the
offered friendship, and again gave him the promise of govern­ment aid if he
should make and observe a treaty allowing white men to pass safety through the
coun­try, to mine in the vicinity, and to settle in the Rogue River Valley.23
By the time his people returned, he had become convinced that this wTas
his best course, and advised them to accept the terms offered, and live in
peace, which was finally agreed to. But the gold- dust of the Oregon party
the}’ had robbed in the spring was gone past all reclaim, as they had, without
know­ing its value, poured it all into the river, at a point where it was impossible
to recover it. Some property of no value was given up; and thus was made the
first

{The
morning after the chief had been made a prisoner his old wife (he had several
others, but said he only loved his first wife} came very cautiously to the bank
of the river opposite, and asked to come over and stay with her chief; that she
did not wish to be free while he was a prisoner. She was told to come and stay,
and was kindly treated.’ Lane's Autobiography, Mb.j 94—5*

treaty with tliis
tribe, a treaty which was observed with passable fidelity for about a year.29

The treaty concluded,
Lane gave the Indians slips of paper stating the fact, and warning white men to
do them no injury. These papers, bearing his signa­ture, became a talisman
among these Indians, who on approaching a white man would hold one of them out
exclaiming, “Jo Lane, Jo Lane,” the only English words they knew. On taking
leave the chief, whose name hereafter by consent of Lane was to be Jo, pre­sented
his friend with a boy slave from the Modoc tribe, who accompanied him to the
Shasta mines to which he now proceeded, the time when his resig­nation was to
take effect having passed. Here he dug gold, and dodged Indian arrows like any
common miner until the spring of 1851, when he was recalled to Oregon.30

The gold discoveries
of 1850 in the Klamatli Val­ley caused an exodus of Oregonians thither early in
the following year ; and notwithstanding Lane’s treaty with Chief Jo, great
vigilance was required to pre­vent hostile encounters with his tribe as well as
with that of the Umpqua Valley south of the canon.31 It

53like
man> another old soldier Lane loved to boast of his exploits. ‘He asked the
interpreter the name of the white chief,’ says the general, ‘and re­quested me
to come to him as he wanted to talk. As I walked up to him he said, “Mika name
Jo Lane?” I said, “Nawitka,” whiehis “ Yes.” He said, “ I want yon to give me
your name, for,” said ho, “I have seen no man like yon.” L told the interpreter
to say to him that I would give him half my name, but not all; that he should
be called Jo. He was much pleased, anu to the day of his death he was known as
Jo. At his request I named his wife, calling her Sally. They had a son and a
daughter, a lad of fourteen, the girl being about sixteen. She was quite a
young queen in her manner and bear­ing, and for an Indian quite pretty. I named
the boy Ben, and the girl Mary.’ Lane's Autobiography, MS., 96- 8.

80Sacramento
Transcript, Jan. 14, 1881. Lane had his adventures in the mines, some of which
are well told in his Autobiography. While on Pit River, his Modoc boy, whom he
named John, and who from bting kindly treated became a devoted servant, was the
means of saving his life and that of an Oregonian named Driscoll, pp. 88-108.

31 Cardwell,
in his Emigrant Company, MS., 2-11, gives a history of his personal experience
in travelling through and residing in Southern Oregon in

1851with 27 others. The Cow-croek Indians
followed and annoyed them for some distance, when tmally one of them was shot
and wounded in the act of taking a horse from camp. At Grra\e creek, in Rogue
River Valley, tnree

soon became evident
that Jo, even if lie were honestly intentioned, could not keep the peace, the
annoying and often threatening demonstrations of his people leading to occasional
overt acts on the part of the miners, a circumstance likely to be construed by
the Indians as sufficient provocation to further and more pronounced hostility.

Some time in May a
young man named Billey was treacherously murdered by two Rogue River Indians,
who, professing to be friendly, were travelling and camping with three white
men. They rose in the night, took Dilley’s gun, the only one in the party, shot
him while sleeping, and made off with the horses and property, the other two
men fleeing back to a company in the rear. On hearing of it thirty men of
Shasta formed a company, headed by one Long, marched over the Siskiyou, and
coming upon a band at the crossing of Rogue River, killed a sub-chief and one
other Indian, took two warriors and two daughters of another chief prisoners,
and held them as hostages for the delivery of the murderers of Dilley. I he
chief refused to give up the guilty Indians, but threatened instead to send a
strong party to destroy Long’s com- _ »

Indians pretending to
bo friendly offered to show his party where gold could be found on the surface
of the ground, telling their story so artfully that cross-questioning of the
three separately did not show any contradiction in their statements, and the
party consented to follow these guides. On a plain, subsequently known As
Harris tlat, the wagons stopped and 11 men were left to guard them, while the
rest of the company kept on with the Indians. They were led some distance up
Applegate creek, where on examining the bars fine gold was found, but none of
the promised nuggets. When the men began prospecting the stream the Indians
collected on the sides of the hills above them, yelling and rolling stones down
the descent. The miners, however, continued to examine the bars up the stream,
a part of them standing guard rifle in hand; working in this manner two days
and encamping in open ground at night. On the evening of the second day their
tormentor!* withdrew in that mysterious manner which precedes an fttack, and
Cardwell’s party fled in haste through the favoring darkness relieved by a late
moon, across the ridge to Rogue River. At Feikins’ ferry, just established,
they found Chief Jo, who Was rather ostentatiously protectiug this tirst white
settlement. While breakfasting a pursuing party of Indians rode up within a
short dis­tance of camp where they were stopped by the presented rifles of the
white men. Jo called this a hunting party ami assured the miners they should
not be molested in passing through the country; on which explanation and
promise >vord was sent to the wagon train, and the company proceeded across
the Siskiyou Mountains to Shasta flat, where they discovered good mines on the
12th of March.

pany, which remained
at the crossing awaiting events.85 It does not appear that Long’s
party was attacked, but several unsuspecting companies suffered in their stead.
These attacks were made chiefly at one place some distance south of the ferry
where Long and his men cncamped.33 The alarm spread throughout, the
southern valleys, and a petition was forwarded to Governor Gaines from the
settlers in the Umpqua for permission to raise a company of volunteers to fight
the Indians. The governor decided to look over the field before granting leave
to the citizens to fight, and repaired in person to the scene of the reported
hostilities.

The Spectator, which
was understood to lean toward Gaines and the administration, as opposed to the
Statesman and democracy, referring to the petition remarked that leave had been
asked to march into the Indian country and slay the savages wherever found;
that the prejudice against Indians was very strong in the mines and daily
increasing; and that no doubt this petition had been sent to the governor to
secure his sanction to bringing a claim against the government for the expenses
of another Indian war.

One of Thurston’s
measures had been the removal

u Or.
Statesman, .Tune 20, 1851; Or. Spectator, June 19, 1851.

33On the 1st of June 26 men were attacked
at the same place, and an Indian was killed in the skirmish. On the 2d four men
were set upon in this camp and robbed of their horses and property, but escaped
alive to Perkins’ ferry; and on the same day a pack-train belonging to one
Nichols was robbed of a naitiber of animals with their packs, one of the men
being wounded in the lieel by a ball. Two other parties were attacked on the
same day, one of which lost four men. On the 3d of June McBride and 31 others
were attacked in camp south of Rogue River. A. Richardson, of San JosS, California,
James Barlow, Captain Turpin, Jesse Dodson and son, Aaron Payne, Dillard Hol­man,
Jesse Runnels, l’resley Lovelady, and Richard Sparks of Oregon were in the
company and were commended for bravery. Or. Statesman, June 20, 1851. There
were but 17 guns in the party, while the Indians numbered over 200, having
about the same number of guns besides their bows and arrows, and were led by a
chief known as Chucklehead. The attack was made at daybrt ak, i:nd the battle
lasted four hours and a half, when Chucklehead being killed the Indians
withdrew. It was believed that the Rogue River people lost several killed and
wounded. None of the w hite men were seriously hurt, owing to the bad firing of
the Indians, not yet used to guns, not to mention their station on the top of a
hill. Three horses, a mule, and §1,500 worth of other property and gold-dust
were taken by the Indians.

from the territory of
the United States troops, which after years of private and legislative appeal
were at an enormous expense finally stationed at the different posts according
to the desire of the people. He rep­resented to congress that so far from being
a blessing they were really a curse to the country, which would gladly be rid
of them. To his constituents he said that the cost of maintaining the rifle
regiment was four hundred thousand dollars a year. lie proposed as a substitute
to persuade congress to furnish a good supply of arms, ammunition, and military
stores to Oregon, and authorize the governor to call out volun­teers when needed,
both as a saving to the govern­ment and a means of profit to the territory, a
part of the plan being to expend one hundred thousand dollars saved in goods
for the Indians, which should be pur­chased only of American merchants in
Oregon.

Thurston’s plan had
been carried out so far as re­moving the rifle regiment was concerned, which in
the month of April began to depart in divisions for California, and thence to
Jefferson Barracks;34 leav­ing on the 1st of June, when Major
Kearney began his march southward with the last division, only two skeleton
companies of artillerymen to take charge of the government property at
Steilacoom, Astoria, Vancouver, and The Dalles. He moved slowly, ex­amining the
country for military stations, and the best route for a military road which
should avoid the Umpqua canon. On arriving at Yoncalla,33 Kearney

3:1 Yoncalla
is a compound of yonc, eagle, and calla or calla-calla, bird or fowl, in the
Indian dialect. It was applied as a name to a conspicuous butte in the Umpqua
Valley, at the foot of which Jesse Applegate made his home, a large and
hospitable mansion, now going to ruin. Applegate agreed to assist Kearney only
in case of a better route than the canon road being dis­covered, liis men
should put it in condition to be travelled by the immigra­tion that year, to
which Kearney consented, and a detachment of 28 men, under Lieutenant
Williamson, accompanied by Levi Scott as well as Apple­gate, began the
reconnoissance about the lllth of June, the main bodj of Kearney’s command
travelling the old road. It was almost with satisfaction that Applegate and
Scott found that no better route than the one they opened i.:i 1846 nvuld be
discovered, since it removed the reproach of their Hist. On., Yol. II. 151

consulted with Jesse
Applegate, whom he prevailed upon to assist in the exploration of the country
east of the canon, in which they were engaged when the Indian Avar began in
Rogue River Valley.

The exploring party
had proceeded as far as this pass when they learned from a settler at the north
end of the canon, one Knott, of the hostilities, and that the Indians were
gathered at Table Rock, an almost impregnable position about twenty miles east
of the ferry on Rogue River.38 On this information Kearney, with a
detachment of twenty-eight men, took up the march for the Indian stronghold
with the design of dislodging them. A heavy rain had swollen the streams and
impeded his progress, and it was not until the morning of the l7tli of June
that he reached Rogue River at a point five miles distant from Table Rock.
While looking for a ford indications of Ind­ians in the vicinity were
discovered, and Kearney hoped to be able to surprise them. He ordered the
command to fasten their sabres to their saddles to prevent noise, and divided
his force, a part under Captain Walker crossing to the south side of the river
to intercept any fugitives, while the remainder under Captain James Stuart kept
upon the north side.

Stuart soon came upon
the Indians who were pre­pared for battle. Dismounting his men, wTlio
in their haste left their sabres tied to their saddles, Stuart made a dash upon
the enemy. They met him with equal courage. A brief struggle took place in
which eleven Indians were killed and several wounded. Stuart himself was
matched against a powerful war­rior, who had been struck more than once without

enemies
that they were to blame for not finding r better one at that time. None other
has ever been found, though Applegate himself expected when with Kearney to be
able to get a road saving 40 miles of travel. Ewald, in Or. Statesman, July 22,
1851.-k

36Table Rock is a ilat-topped mountain
overhanging Rogue River. Using the rock as a watch-tower, the Indians in
perfect security had a large extent of country and a long line of road under
their observation, and could deter­mine the strength of any passing company of
travellers and their place of encampment, before sallying forth to the attack.
Or. Statesman, July 22,1851.

meeting his death. As
the captain approached, the savage, though prostrate, let fly an arrow which
pierced him through, lodging in the kidneys, of which wound he died the day
after the battle.37 Captain Peck was also wounded severely, and one
of the troops slightly.

The Indians, wTho
were found to be in large num­bers, retreated upon their stronghold, and
Kearney also fell back to wait for the coming-up of lieuten- auts Williamson
and Irvine with a detachment, and the volunteer companies hastily gathered
among the miners.88 Camp was made at the mouth of a tribu­tary of
Rogue River, entering a few miles below Table Rock, which was named Stuart
creek after the dying captain. It was not till the 23d that the Indians wrere
again engaged. A skirmish occurred in the morning, and a four hours’ battle in
the afternoon of that day. The Indians were stationed in a densely wooded
hummock, which gave them the advantage in point of position, while in the
matter of arms the

37 Brackett,
in his XJ. S. Cavalry, calls this officer ‘the excellent and be­loved Captain
James Stuart.’ The nature of the wound caused excruciating pain, but his great
regret was that after passing unharmed through six hard battles in Mexico he
shonld die in the wilderness at the hands of an Indian. It i3 doubtful,
however, if death on a Mexican battle-field would have brought with it a more
lasting renown. Stuart Creek on which he was interred — camp being made over
his grave to obliterate it—and the warm place kept for him in the hearts of
Oregonians will perpetuate his memory. Cardwell's Emigrant Company, MS., 14;
Or. Statesman, July 8, 1851; S. F. AUa> July 16, 1851; State Rights Democrat
> Dec. 15th and 22, 1876.

88 Cardwell
relates that his company were returning from Josephine creek— named after a
daughter of Kirby who founded Kirbyville—on their way to Yreka, when they met
Applegate at the ferry on Rogue River, who suggested that it ‘ would be proper
enough to assist the government troops and Lamer- ick’s volunteers to clean out
the Indians in Rogue River Valley. * Thirty men upon this suggestion went to
Willow Springs on the 16th, upon the under­standing that Kearney would make an
attack next day near the mouth of Stuart’s creek, when it was thought the
Indians would move in this direction, and the volunteers could engage them
until the troops came up. ‘ At day­light the following morning,* says Cardwell,
‘we heard the firing commence. It was kept up quite briskly for about fifteen
minutes. There was a terrible yelling and crying by the Indians, and howling of
dogs during the battle.5 Emigrant Company, MS., 12; Crane's Top.
Mem., MS., 40. The names of Applegate, Scott, Boone, T’Vault, Armstrong,
Blanchard, and Colonel Tranor from California, are mentioned in Lane’s
correspondence in the Or. Statesman July 22, 1851, as ready to assist the
troops. I suppose this to be James W. Tranor, formerly of the New Orleans
press, ‘an adventurous pioneer and brilliant newspaper writer,’ who was
afterward killed by Indians while cross­ing Pit River. Oakland Transcript, Dec.
7, 1872.

troops were better
furnished. In these battles the savages again suffered severely, and on the
other side several were wounded but none killed.

While these events were
in progress both Gaines and Lane were on their way to the scene of action. The
governor’s position was not an enviable one. Scarcely were the riflemen beyond
the Willamette when he was forced to write the president representing the
imprudence of withdrawing the troops at this time, no provision having been
made by the legislature for or­ganising the militia of the territory, or for
meeting in any way the emergency evidently arising.39 The re­ply
which in due time he received was that the rifle regiment had been withdrawn,
first because its services were needed on the frontier of Mexico and Texas, and
secondly because the Oregon delegate had as­sured the department that its
presence in Oregon was not needed. In answer to the governor’s suggestion that
a post should be established in southern Oregon, the secretary gave it as his
opinion that the com­manding officer in California should order a recon-
noissance in that part of the country, with a view to selecting a proper site
for such a post without loss of time. But with regard to troops, there were
none that could be sent to Oregon; nor could they, if put en route at that
time, 't being already September, reach there in time to meet the emergency.
The secretary therefore suggested that companies of militia might be organized,
which could be mustered into ser­vice for short periods, and used in
conjunction with the regular troops in the pursuit of Indians, or as the
exigencies of the service demanded.

Meanwhile Gaines,
deprived entirely of military sup­port, endeavored to raise a. volunteer
company at Yon- calla to escort him over the dangerous portion of the route to
Rogue River; but most of the men of Ump­qua, having either gone to the mines or
to reenforce

Kearney, tins was a
difficult undertaking, detaining him so that it was the last of the month
before he reached his destination. Lane having already started south to look
after his mining property before quitting Ore­gon for Washington arrived at the
Umpqua canon on the 21st, where he was met by a party going north, from whom he
obtained the news of the battle of the 17th and the results, with the
information that more fighting was expected. Hastening forward with his party
of about forty men he arrived at the foot of the Rogue River mountains on the
night of the 22d, where he learned from an express rider that Kearney had by
that time left cam}) on Stuart creek with the intention of making a night march
in order to strike the Indians at daybreak of the 23d.

He set out to join
Kearney, but after a hard day’s ride, being unsuccessful, proceeded next
morning to Camp Stuart with the hope of learning something of the movements of
Kearney’s command. That evening Scott and T’Vault came to camp with a small
party, for supplies, and Lane returned with them to the army, riding from nine
o’clock in the evening to two o’clock in the morning, and being heartily
welcomed both by Kearnpy and the volunteers.

Early on the 25tli,
the command moved back down the river to overtake the Indians, who had escaped
during the night, and crossing the river seven miles above the ferry found the
trail leading up Sardine creek, which being followed brought them up with the
fugitives, one of whom was killed, while the others scattered through the woods
like a covey of quail in the grass. Two days were spent in pursuing and taking
prisoners the women and children, the men escaping. On the 27th the army
scoured the country from the ferry to Table Rock, returning in the even­ing to
Camp Stuart, when the campaign was consid­ered as closed. Fifty Indians had
been killed and thirty prisoners taken, while the loss to the white warriors,
since the first battle, was a few wounded.

The Indians had at
the first been proudly defiant, Chief Jo boasting that he had a thousand
warriors, and could keep that number of arrows in the air con­tinually. But
their pride had suffered a fall which left them apparently humbled. They
complained to Lane, whom they recognized, talking across the river in
stentorian tones, that white men had come on horses in great numbers, invading
every portion of their country. They were afraid, they said, to lie down to
sleep lest the strangers should be upon them. They wearied of war and wanted peace.40
There was truth as well as oratorical effect in their harangues, for just at
this time their sleep was indeed insecure*; but it was not taken into account
by them that they had given white men this feeling of insecurity of which they
complained.

Now that the fighting
was over Kearney was anxious to resume his march toward California, but was
embarrassed with the charge of prisoners. The governor had not yet arrived; the
superintendent of Indian affairs was a great distance off in another part of
the territory; there was no place where they could be confined iij Rogue River
valley, nor did lie know of any means of sending them to Oregon City. But he
was determined not to release them until they had consented to a treaty of
peace. Sooner than do that he would take them with him to California and send
them back to Oregon by sea. Indeed he had pro­ceeded with them to within
twenty-five miles of Shasta Butte, a mining town afterward named Yreka,41
when Lane, who when his services were no longer needed in the field had
continued his journey to Shasta Valley, again came to his relief by offering to
escort the prisoners to Oregon City whither he was about to return, or to
deliver them to the governor or super-

40 Letter of
Lane, in Or. Statesman, .Tulv 22, 1851.

11 It is
said that the Indians called Mount Shasta Yee-ka, and that the miners having
caught something of Spanish orthographj and pronunciation changed it to Yreka;
hence Shasta Butte city became Yreka. E. Steele, in Or. Council, Jour. 1857-8,
app. 44.

intendent of Indian
affairs wherever he might find them. Lieutenant Irvine,42 from whom
Lane learned Kearney’s predicament, carried Lane’s proposition to the major,
and the prisoners were at once sent to his care, escorted by Captain Walker.
Lane’s party43 set out immediately for the north, and on the 7th of
July delivered their charge to Governor Gaines, who had arrived at the ferry,
where he was encamped with fifteen men waiting for his interpreters to bring
the Rogue River chiefs to a council, his success in which undertaking wTas
greatly due to his possession of their families. Lane then hastened to Oregon
City to embark for the national capital, having added much to his reputation
with the people by his readiness of action in this first Indian war west of the
Cascade Mountains, as well as in the prompt arrest of the deserting riflemen in
the spring of 1850. To do, to do quickly, and generally to do the thing
pleasing to the people, of whom he always seemed to be thinking, was natural
and easy for him, and in this lay the secret of his popularity.

When Gaines arrived
at Rogue River he found Kearney had gone, not a trooper in the country, and the
Indians scattered. He made an attempt to col­lect them for a council, and
succeeded, as I have inti­mated, by means of the prisoners Lane brought him, in
inducing about one hundred, among whom .were eleven head men, to agree to a
peace. By the terms of the treaty, which was altogether informal, his com­mission
having been withdrawn, the Indians placed

42Irvine, who was with Williamson on a
topographical expedition, had an adventure before he was well out of the Shasta
country with two Indians and a Frenchman who took him prisoner, bound him to a
tree, and inflicted some tortures upon him. The Frenchman who was using the
Indians for his own purposes finally sent them away 011 some pretence, and
taking the wTatch and valuables belonging to Irvine sat dowrn
by the camp-fire to count his spoil. While thus engaged the lieutenant
succeeded in freeing himself from his bonds, and rushing upon the fellow struck
him senseless for a moment. O11 recovering himself the Frenchman struggled
desperately with his former prisoner but was finally killed and Irvine escaped.
Or. Statesman, Aug. 5, 1851. _

43Among Lane’s company were Daniel Waldo,
Hunter, and Rust of Ken­tucky, and Simonson of Indiana.

themselves under the
jurisdiction and protection of the United States, and agreed to restore all the
prop­erty stolen at any time from white persons, in return' for which promises
of good behavior they received back their wives and children and any property
taken from them. There was nothing in the treaty to pre­vent the Indians, as
soon as they were reunited to their families, from resuming their hostilities;
and indeed it was well known that there were two parties amongst them—one in
favor of war and the other opposed to it, but the majority for it. Though so
severely punished, the head chief of the war party re­fused to treat with
Kearney, and challenged him to further combat, after the battle of the 23d. It
was quite natural therefore that the governor should qualify his belief that
they would observe the treaty, provided an efficient agent and a small military
force could be sent among them. And it was no less nat­ural that the miners and
settlers should doubt the keeping of the compact, and believe in a peace pro­cured
by the rifle.

PLAUSIBLE
PACIFICATION.

185)-1852.

Officers and Indian
Agents at Poet Orford—Attitude of the Co-
quille.-1—U. S. Troops Ordered out—Soldiers as
Indian-fighters— The Savages too Much for Totm—Something or Scarface and th*
Shastas—Steele Secures a Conference—Action of Superin­tendent Skinner—Much Ado
about Nothing—Some Fighting—An Insect re 1'bace—Moke Troops Ordered to
Vancouver.

General Hitchcock,
commanding the Pacific di­vision at Benicia, California, on hearing Kearny’s ac­count
of affairs between the Indians and the miners, made a visit to Oregon; and
ha\ing been persuaded that Port Orford was the proper point for a garrison,
transferred Lieutenant Kautz and his company of twenty men from Astoria, where
the governor had declared they wTere of no use, to Port Orford,
where he afterward complained they were worth no more. At the same time the
superintendent of Indian affairs, with agents Parrish and Spalding, repaired to
tlio southern coast to treat if possible with its people. They took passage on
the propeller Seagull, from Portland, on the 12th of September, 1851, T’Vault’s
party being at that time in the mountains looking for a road. The Seagull
arrived at Port Orford on the 14th, two days before T’Vault and Brush were re­turned
to that place, naked and stiff with wounds, by the charitable natives of Cape
Blanco.

The twofold policy of
the United States made it the duty of the superintendent to notice the murderous

"(233)

conduct of the
Ooquilles. As Dart had como to treat, ho did not wish to appear as an avenger;
neither did he feel secure as conciliator. It was at length decided to employ
the Cape Blanco native, who under­took to ascertain the whereabouts, alive or
dead, of the seven men still missing of the T'Vault party. This he did by
sending two women of his tribe to the Coquille River, where the killing of
five, and probable escape of the rest, was ascertained. The women in­terred the
mangled bodies in the sand.

The attitude of the
Coquilles was not assuring. To treat with them while they harbored murderers
would not do; and how to make them give them up without calling on the military
puzzled the superin­tendent. Finally Parrish, whose residence among the Clatsops
had given him some knowledge of the coast tribes, undertook to secure hostages,
but failed.1 Dart returned to Portland about the 1st of October,
leaving his interpreter with Kautz.

Between the visits of
Governor Gaines to Rogue River and Dart to Port Orford, disturbances had been
resumed in the former region. Gaines had agreed upon a mutual restitution of
property or of its value, which was found not to work well, the miners being as
much dissatisfied as the Indians. From this reason, and because the majority of
the Rogue River natives were not parties to the treaty, not many weeks had
elapsed after Gaines returned to Oregon City before depredations were resumed.
A settler’s cabin was broken into on Grave Creek, and some travellers were
fired 011 from ambush;2 rumors of which reach­ing the superintendent
before leaving the Willamette, he sent a messenger to request the Rogue River
chiefs to meet him at Port Orford. Ignorance of Indian ways, unpardonable iti a
superintendent, could alone have caused so great a blunder. Not only did they
refuse thus to go into their neighbor’s territory,

1 Or.
Anecdotes, MS., 58-01

a Or.
Statesman, Sept. 2, 9, 10, and 30, 1831.

but made the request
an excuse for further disturb­ances.3 Again, there were white men in
this region who killed and robbed white men, charging their crimes4
upon the savages. Indian Agent Skinner held conferences with several bands at
Rogue River, all of whom professed friendship and accepted presents;5
in which better frame of mind I will leave them and return to affairs at Port
Orford.

When intelligence of
the massacre on the Coquille was received at division headquarters in
California, punishment was deemed necessary, and as I have be­fore mentioned, a
military force was transferred to the Port Orford station. The troops,
commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Casey of the 2d infantry, were portions of
companies E and A, 1st dragoons dis­mounted, lieutenants Thomas Wright and
George Stoneman, and company C with their horses. The dismounted men arrived at
Port Orford October 22d, and the mounted men by the next steamer, five days
later. On the 31st the three companies set out for the mouth of the Coquille,
arriving at their destina­tion November 3d, Colonel Casey and Lieutenant
Stanton leading the mounted men, with Brush, a sur­vivor of the massacre, as
guide, and a few stragglers. The Coquilles were bold and brave. One of them
meeting Wright away from camp attempted to wrest from him his rifl<%and was
shot by that officer for his temerity. On the 5th the savages assembled on the

_ "Two drovers,
Moffat and Evans, taking a herd ot swine to the Shasta, mines, encamped with
two others near the foot of the Siskiyou Mountains, their liogs eating the
acorns used as food by the natives, who demanded a hog in payment. One of them
pointed his gun at a pig as if to shoot, whereupon Moifat < rew his pistol,
and accidentally discharging it, hurt liis hand. Irri­tated by the pain, Moffat
fired at the Indian, killing him. Another Indian then fired at Moffat, giving
him a mortal wound. In the excitement, Evans and the Indians exchanged shots,
wounds being received on both sides. Moffat was from Philadelphia, where he had
a family. Or. Statesman, Nov.

11and 25, 1851; Or. Spectator, Jan. 6,
1832.

1'1 here was at this time on the southern
border of Oregon an organized band of desperadoes, white men, half-breeds, and
Indians, who were the terror of the miners. See Popular Tribunal«, this scries,
passim.

bV. S. Sen.
Doc., 32d coug. 2d sess., i. 433.

north bank to the
number of one hundred and fifty, and by their gesticulations challenged the
troops to battle. The soldiers fired across the river, the Co- quilles
returning the fire with the guns taken from T’Yault’s party ;tf but
no damage was done. Construct­ing a raft, the main body crossed to the north
side on the 7th in a cold drenching rain, while Stanton proceeded up the south
side, ready to cooperate with Casey when the Indians, who had now retreated up
the stream, should be found. It was soon ascertained that a campaign on the
Coquille was no trilling matter. The savages were nowhere to be found in force,
hav­ing fled toward head waters, or a favorable ambush. Marching in order was
not to be thought of; and after several days of wading through morasses, climb­ing
hills, and forcing a way among the undergrowth by day and sleeping under a
single wet blanket at night, the order to retreat was given. Nothing had been
met with on the route but deserted villages, which were invariably destroyed, together
with the winter’s store of provisions—a noble revenge on inno­cent women and
children, who must starve in conse­quence. Returning to the mouth of the river,
Casey sent to Port Orford for boats to be brought overland, on the arrival of
which the campaign was recom­menced on a different plan.

In three small boats
were crowded sixty men, in such a manner that their arms could not be used; and
so they proceeded up the river for four days, finding no enemy. At the forks,
the current being strong, the troops encamped. It was now the 20th of No­vember,
and the weather very inclement. On the 21st Casey detailed Stoneman to proceed
up the south branch with one boat and fourteen men; while Wright

f T’Vault
isays there were eight rifles, one musket, ono double-barrelled pis­tol, one
Sharp’s patent 30 shooting rifle, one Colt’s six-shooter, one brace hol­ster
pistols, ■with
ammunition, and some blankets. Here were fourteen shoot- ing-armti, many of
them repeating, yet the party conld not defend themselves on account of the
suddenness and manner of the attack. Or. Statesman, Oct. 7, 1S0I.

■with a
similar force ascended the north branch, look­ing for Indians. After advancing
six or eight miles, Stoneman discovered the enemy in force on both banks. A few
shots were fired, and the party returned and reported. In the course of the
afternoon Wright also returned, having been about eighteen miles up the north
branch without finding any foe. On the 22d the whole command set out toward the
Indian camp on the south branch, taking only two boats, with five men in each,
the troops marching up the right bank to within half a mile of the point aimed
at, when Stoneman crossed to the left bank with one company, and the march was
resumed m silence, the boats con­tinuing to ascend with equal caution. The
Indians were found assembled at the junction. When the boats were within a
hundred and fifty yards of them the savages opened fire with guns and arrows.
Wright then made a dash to the river bank, and with yells drove the savages into
concealment. Meanwhile Stoneman was busy picking off certain of the enemy
stationed on the bank to prevent a landing.

The engagement lasted
only about twenty minutes, and the Coquilles had now scampered into the woods,
where it would be useless to attempt to follow them. Fifteen were killed and
many appeared to be wounded. Their lodges and provisions were burned, while
their canoes were carried away. Casey, who was with Wright on the north bank,
joined in the fighting with enthusiasm, telling the men to take good aim and
not throw away shots.7

The troops returned
to the mouth of the river, where they remained for a few days, and then marched
back to Port Orford, and took passage on the Colum­bia for San Francisco, where
they arrived on the 12th

7 The
ab..ve details are mostly from the letter of a private soldier, written to his
brother in the east. Before the letter was mushed the writer was drowned in the
Sixes River near Capo Blanco, while riding express frvm Port Orford t >
Lieut. Stoneman’s camp at the mnuth of the Coquille. The letter was published
in the AHa California, Dec. 14, 1S51. It agrees with other but less particular
accounts, in thu S. F. Herald of Dec. 4,1851, and Or. States­man, L)ec. 16 and
30,1851. See also Davidson's Coatf Pilot, 119.

of December.8
This expedition cost t-lie government some twenty-five thousand dollars,9
and resulted in killing a dozen or more Indians, which coming after the late
friendly professions of Indian Agent Parrish, did not tend to confidence in the
promises of the govern­ment, or increase the safety of the settlers.10

Ihave told how Stanton returned to Oregon
with troops to garrison Fort Orford, being shipwrecked and detained four months
at Coos Bay. lie had orders to explore for a road to the interior, in connec­tion
with Williamson, who had already begun this survey. The work was prosecuted
with energy, and finished in the autumn of 1852.

The presents
distributed by Skinner had not the virtue to preserve lasting tranquillity in
the mining region. In the latter part of April 1852, a citizen of Marion county
returning from the mines was robbed of his horse and other property in the
Grave Creek hills by Bogue River Indians. This act was followed by other
interruption of travellers, and de­mand for pay for passing fords.11
Growing bolder, robbery was followed by murder, and then came war.12

10‘ The commanders went without an
interpreter to the Coquille village,

9ad just banged away until they gratified
themselves, and then went to Port Orford and back to San Francisco.’ Parrish's
Or. Anecdotes, MS., 06. See also Alta California, Dec. 14, 1851.

IIllearne’s Cal, Sketches, MS., 2.

12In the early spring of 1852 a party of
five men, led by James Coy, left Jacksonville to look for mining ground toward
the coast. Having discov­ered some good diggings on a tributary of Illinois
Itiver, now called Jose­phine Creek, they were following up the right branch,
when they discovered, three miles above the junction, the remains of two white
men, evidently murdered by the Indians. Being few iu number, they determined to
return and reenforce. Camping at night at the mouth of Josephine Creek, they
were attacked by a large force. They kept the enemy at bay until the next
night, when one of the men crowded through their linos, and hastened to
Jacksonville for aid. All that day, and the next, and until about ten o’clock
on the third, the besieged defended their little fortress, when a party of 33
came down th< mountain to their relief; and finding the country rich in
mines, took up claims, and made the first permanent settlement iii Illinois
Valley. t>crap3 Southern Or. Hist., in Ashland Tidings, Sept. 20, 1878.

notorious villain,
who liad killed his chief and usurped authority, murdered one Calvin Woodman,
on Ind­ian Creek, a small tributary of the Klamath. The white men of Shasta and
Scott’s valleys arrested the head chief, and demanded the surrender of Scarfacc
and his accomplice, another Shasta known as Bill. The captured chief not only
refused, but made his escape. The miners then organized, and in a fight -which
ensued the sheriff was wounded, some horses being killed. Mr E. Steele was then
living at Yreka. lie had mined in the Shasta valley when Lane was digging gold
in that vicinity. The natives had named him Jo Lane’s Brother, and he had great
influence with them. Steele had been absent at the time of the murder, but
returning to Scott Valley soon after, found the Indians moving their families
toward the Salmon River mountains, a sign of approaching trouble. Hastening to
Johnson’s rancho, he learned what had occurred, and also met there a company
from Scott Bar prosecuting an unsuccessful search for the savages in the
direction of Yreka. Next day, at the request of Johnson, who had his family at
the rancho and was concerned for their safety, Steele col­lected the Indians in
Scott Yalley and held a council.

The Shastas, to which
nation belonged the Roinie River tribes, were divided under several chiefs as
fol­lows: Tolo was the acknowledged head of those who lived in the fiat country
about Yreka; Scarface and Bill were over those in Shasta Valley; John of those in
Scott Yalley; and Sam and Jo of those in Rogue River Valley, having been
formerly all under one chief, the fa­ther of John. On the death of the old
chief a feud had arisen concerning the supremacy, which was inter­rupted by the
appearance of white men, since which time each had controlled his own band.
Then there were two chiefs who had their country at the foot of the Siskiyou
Mountains on the north side, or south of Jacksonville, namely, Tipso, that is
to say, The Hairy, from his heavy beard, and Sullix, or the Bad-tem­

pered, both of whom
were unfriendly to the settlers and miners.13 They also had wars
with the Shastas on the south side of the Siskiyou,14 and were alto­gether
turbulent in their character,

The chiefs whom
Steele induced to trust themselves inside Johnson’s stockade for conference
were Tolo, his son Philip, and John, with three of his brothers, one of whom
was known as Jim. These affirmed that they desired peace, and said if Steele
would accom­pany them they would go in search of the murderers. Accordingly a
party of seven was formed, four more joining at Shasta canon.15
Proceeding to Yreka, Steele had some trouble to protect his savages from the
citizens, who wished to hang them. But an order of arrest having been obtained
from the county judge, the party proceeded, and in two days reached the
hiding-place of Scarface and Bill. The criminals had fled, having gone to join
Sam, brother of Chief Jo, Lane’s namesake, who had taken up arms because Dr
Ambrose, a settler, had seized the ground which was the winter residence of the
tribe, and because he would not betroth his daughter to Sam’s son, both
children being still of tender age.

Tolo, Philip, and Jim
then withdrew from the party of white men, substituting two young warriors, who
were pledged to find Scarface and BUI, or suffer in their stead. A party under
Wright then proceeded to the Klamath country. Steele went to Rogue River,
hearing on the Siskiyou Mountain confirmation of the war rumor from a captured
warrior, afterward shot in trying to effect his escape.

Rumors of
disaffection reaching Table Rock,18 seven­

13See Cardwell's Em. Co., MS., 15, 7.

14Id., 15-21; Ashland Tid., Deo. 2, 9,
187(1, and Sept. 20, 1878.

J3The Scott
Valley men were John McLeod, James Bruce, James White, Peter Snellbaok, John
Galvin, and a youth called Harry. The four irom

^Jacksonville was at
this time called Table Rock, though without rele­

vance. The first
journal published there was the Table Rock Sentinel. Prim’s Judicial Affairs in
S. Or., MS., 3.

ty-five or eighty
men, with John K. Lamerick as leader, volunteered to go and kill Indians.
Hearing of it, Skinner hastened to prevent slaughter, but only obtained a
promise not to attack until he should have had an opportunity of parley. A
committee of four was appointed by the citizens of Table Rock to ac­company the
agent. They found Sam at his encamp­ment at Rig Bar, two miles from the house
of Ambrose, and at no great distance from Stuart’s former camp. Sam did not
hesitate to cross to the south side to talk with Skinner. He declared him­self
for peace, and proposed to send for his brother Jo, with all his band, to meet
the agent the following day; nor did he make any objection when told that a
large number of white men would be present to wit­ness the negotiations.